Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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full circle moments with jess and some veggie growing advice from grandpa stubbs

Hello, thanks for checking in!! Yesterday Jessica and I spent several hours together in the city, with the aim of installing her first garden. I have so much to tell you and will break this up into parts so you can read what interests you. It’s gonna be long. : )

Lunch and How Love Brings Us Full Circle

First, I picked her up at her new place and we drove south for lunch at the salad bar inside Green Acres health food store on 240. We both love salads and fruits and veggies to the max, and she said she had been craving it a little more than normal, so it was perfect. I loaded an obscene amount of everything into my plastic clamshell box and did not have leftovers.

We sat there talking about life and God’s plans for us and how things don’t always turn out the way we expect. But that His love and intentions for us are always good. She didn’t know that for several months now every message I get from God has been about unconditional trust. We reflected even more on her time in the convent in Germany last spring, on how her first month has been living on her own, and food and health and gardening and budgets.

The salad bar provided an excellent starting point for deciding which of the foods she likes to eat are also feasible for growing in Oklahoma. Not papaya, for example, but definitely cucumbers. We discussed homemade salad dressing and the past and the future.

And about how many small gestures or idiosyncracies she seems to have inherited from me. Ha!

Garden Shopping

After a refreshing lunch, we walked next door to Big Lots to buy her a shovel and a few other basic things, nothing fancy. (I still use a shovel I bought there over a decade ago!) She selected a pair of polka-dot cotton gardening gloves which were exactly her style but which later while digging in the dirt, she would toss aside because “It feels too impersonal.”

She used to say that when she was a little girl. At our old house in the city, the girls would sift the dirt with their tiny bare hands, twirl the earthworms between their skinny fingers, flood the backyard with hose water for “Mud Monster” days, and more. It was a very backyard-oriented childhood. I am so grateful for that and so thrilled at how much she remembers.

After Big Lots, we drove back toward downtown OKC to stop at Pam’s garden stand near the historic Farmer’s Market. The day was warm and sunny, and the spring winds were combing across row after row of intensely colored petunias, marigolds, begonias, coleus, impatiens, and much more. Ruffles of life and happy energy. We were in heaven. She explored the aisles completely in obedience to her instincts, touching everything gently, marveling at the variety. I could not take my eyes off of her tall, graceful frame. Not very long ago she and her sister were so small they would run between the rows and disappear into the ocean of color, shining brown hair bobbing up and down.

When we reached the building at the furthest corner of the city block, we found the greenhouse filled with vegetable seedlings. Humid and intimate, undecorated, weeds rampant on the edges of the gravel floor which is bordered with railroad timbers and concrete blocks, you step into a space like that and know that something primal and true is happening. The wind whipped hard at the plastic roof, over and over again, and it made my heart race. The plainest of plain handwritten labels, the strongest looking plants. Simplest pricing, almost like the exchange of money is a formality.

I enjoyed an intense memory of the vegetables my Grandpa used to start from seed and the plastic knives he used as labels, each little plant identified in his beautiful slanted handwriting, black magic marker always. “Celebrity,” “Early Girl,” “Beefsteak,” “Best Boy.” I selected one of each of Grandpa’s favorite tomatoes for her, and we found a few new ones too. “Super Fantastic” got a long, good laugh from us both! She was especially happy to scoop up yellow squash babies and cantaloupe vines. Bell peppers, a basil plant, and more. So much fun, this miniature safari expedition to start her very first garden at her very first place.

We paid for our bounty and listened to the growing advice offered for free by the proprietor. Promised to return soon and in the meantime to mound up the soil on that blackberry vine so its feet never stay too wet.

Back at her place, I was amazed again at how much gardening technique Jess remembered from childhood. She used to help me outside all the time, and the familiarity was deeply comforting. She’s an enthusiastic learner, too, so the information that happened to be new fell on eager ears. 

We took turns digging the virgin earth and clearing away dry leaves. (I should have brought more tools.) Fortunately, the little garden space next to her little patio was pretty good soil already, just a bit compacted and dotted with a few bricks which we unearthed easily. It was also laced with ivy roots from the adjacent yards. Clearing all of that was a good little exertion on a humid day, and I loved watching her concentrate on the space.

When it was finally time to arrange her tomatoes and peppers and plan the cantaloupe spots, this girl was downright giddy.

I can relate.

There’s so much more to tell, but let me end by saying proudly that she did such a great job on the first day of work and her garden will grow very well under her care. She already texted me this morning asking how I thought the overnights storms will have affected everything.

Veggie Growing Advice from Grandpa Stubbs

Since lately I can scarcely smell a tomato leaf or crush a spent marigold without thinking of Grandpa Stubbs, I hope you’ll indulge me by considering some practical advice from the best gardener I have ever known. And a very special thank you to my girl for listening to so many Grandpa stories yesterday. Telling those stories is how he lives on, and I know he would be thrilled to see his great-granddaughter keeping his old techniques.  

Tomatoes:

  • Strip the bottom one or two sets of leaves from the stem and toss those inside your planting hole for good luck. Where you removed leaves and created a small wound, the stem will grow new roots.
  • Lean your tomato to the side and place it almost horizontally into the hole, gently guiding the top of the plant skyward. You’ll be amazed at how readily the plant finds its way. Just be gentle, taking care not to break its neck. Firmly pat all the soil back around the tomato plant and press it well. Water deeply.
  • As the tomato grows, keep it groomed by removing not only yellow leaves but also any shoots that appear at the “Y” intersections. This is what thumbnails are for. If you’re feeling really thrifty and ambitious, you can root those suckers in a glass of water and soon have a brand new seedling to grow outdoors.
  • Coffe grounds and crushed eggshells are good additions for the base of your tomato plants.
  • Consider interplanting tomatoes with marigolds, nasturtiums, and basil. Grandpa once told me this was actually just for looks, a false old wives’ tale, not insect prevention as people claim. Then he exploded into that deep, loud, vibrant, chuckling belly laugh of his, and he called me “Mareezee,” and I wasn’t sure which was the joke, ha! I’m still not sure! But I always plant these with my tomatoes no matter what, and for every possible reason, just in case, and just because he did. And I suggest you do the same.

Cantaloupe:

  • In Oklahoma, this fruit grows well both from seed and as a seedling you buy at the garden center. Do it! It’s cheap and fun!
  • Grandpa trained his up and along a chainlink fence, maybe to disguise the eyesore in his yard, and it worked great. So he taught me to do this and I recommended to Jess that she take advantage of her chainlink wall and place her melon vines there. It’s strong and perfect. 
  • Once the vines grow (don’t worry, they will) and fruit appears and gets heavy (it definitely will as long as you water it a lot), use old nylon pantyhose as miniature hammocks to suspend the melons and take the weight off the vine. Repurposing. Jess was all about this idea!

Vegetable Seeds in General:

  • Most seeds want to be planted at a depth similar to their own size. So, sunflower seeds need a centimeter or so of dirt for a good burial. Radish and lettuce seeds, which are not much coarser than salt, need to be only scratched into the surface of your garden. Pat-pat-pat. 
  • Plant wide-row beds of lettuce, for sure, but also use that real estate below and between your bigger plants for spreading extra lettuce seeds, etc. Leafies make an excellent (and edible!) ground cover. Weed prevention and food at the same time, for almost no money.
  • Radish seeds, by the way, can be interplanted with all of your leafy greens. They will not only grow more quickly, which is exciting; but by harvesting the big ones throughout your salad garden months, the vacancies they leave behind will provide a little aeration.
  • Thin your radishes. You will almost inevitably plant them too thickly, so be ruthless in thinning them. Otherwise, none will have enough elbow room to mature. You can add the threadlike castoffs to your compost or eat them if you are cool like Grandpa and me.
  • Lettuce, kale, spinach, and more can stay in your garden almost all year if you trim the food with scissors instead of pulling the plants up. They grow over and over. “Cut and come again” is what they call it.
  • Water the seedbeds more than you think they need it, especially in the beginning, and especially as the plants get lush and summer heats up.
  • Don’t be afraid to try a small garden here or there in odd locations. Especially if you have access to magical compost! You might be surprised at what will grow in shade or in sand or in something else crazy. Seeds are not expensive and are a fun way to experiment with growing conditions, design, and more.
  • Have fun!! Laugh hard about it all. Spend time out there, just looking at it. Grandpa called this, “piddling around.” 

Those radishes got harvested today. Gorgeous!! Delicious!!

Friends, I will end there. My heart is full. I thank you for your love and hope you feel mine. Check in tomorrow for stories about Klaus and Lincoln! The brothers’ slumber party week continues.

“The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.”
“Count it all Joy.”
XOXOXOXO

a nightmare, a memory, and promises

I am never not thinking about her. Day and night, whether I am alone or with people, she is there in the periphery at least but more often right up front, an up-close but silent line drawing around every face I see, every activity, every thought.

And I don’t know how much I am allowed to talk about it because at this moment there is nothing we can do but pray.

It’s not all worry or grief. I just plain miss her. Her voice, her smile, her skin. I miss her sense of humor, her plans, the way she loves her dogs and the mountains, the photos of what she’s cooking (she is such a wonderful, creative cook!). I miss our conversations, both deep and silly.

I miss that cozy assurance that she is my daughter and I am her mother and that no matter what happened during those years apart, no matter what people said and did, no matter how much time passed, it was always so. And it will always be so. I miss that assurance a lot. I fight voices every day whispering that the last few years were a lie, that she didn’t love me or that we didn’t actually regain that intimacy. That I was blinded by desperation.

She does appear in my dreams still, but less often in that magical way I experienced during her first long absence. Lately, they are nightmares, although sometimes those can deliver a spark of hope too. 

Two nights ago I dreamed she was an infant and we were swimming together in dark purple water, barely lit from above by a single light source. It was a deep, narrow chute of water, like an underwater cave surrounded by nothing. She was drowning. Her tiny face angry and contorted, so blue it was almost black, silent but screaming, panicked for air, furious that she couldn’t breathe, terrified. I was below her. My legs were tied with corrugated pool hoses and wires, tied so tight I couldn’t kick. My arms were reaching out, my fingertips barely touching her. In that dream, I could feel her tiny, fleshy body bob against my hands. It was visceral. All I could do was just barely tap her through the water, toward the surface.

When she had an emergency appendectomy several years before all of this, her recovery was a miracle. Leading up to her discharge, she very much wanted to do everything the doctors told her to do, such as sit up on her own and learn again to twist out of bed. She was fighting both an infection from lack of antibiotics at the hospital and the normal abdomen pain from the gas they used to inflate her little belly for surgery. Moving on her own was important but uncomfortable, and it was difficult for me to not help her. One moment in particular as she was struggling to sit up, and I was struggling to watch her, she looked at me so sweetly and said, “Just a little nudge, Mama?” I rushed in and gave her the smallest nudge on her lower back and a little pressure on her upper arm, and she gripped me for balance. She twisted and sat up straight and stood up on her own. Gradually she walked and soon she felt so much better.

Just a little nudge, Mama?

In the dream, she was just a baby but she looked at me with those big brown China doll eyes and begged for help I couldn’t provide. Pleaded for it. Her face blue and her body slipping down into the dark water, her pale chubby legs kicking against the shadows.

Again I nudged her lightly, barely a tap, and the water floated her for a moment until she sank again. I cried out to God silently in my thoughts, “SAVE MY BABY, PLEASE COME GET HER, DON’T YOU SEE HER?? I CANNOT REACH HER, SHE IS SINKING!!”

Screamed it.

And He did. He reached down in that instant and pulled her swiftly to the surface, where she found air and warmth and sunlight just in time. I couldn’t see her anymore but I was relieved. I still felt could still feel the hoses around my legs and the thick, oily cold water all over my body, those details only dreams can make you feel.

She was gone but safe. And I woke up.

A little while after waking up I cried telling my husband about the dream, it was so terrifying. But saying it out loud I finally heard the promises:

  • God rescues when we are powerless.
  • He does see.
  • He does hear our silent screams.
  • He will show up just in time.
  • He loves her now just like when she was an infant, just like when she was a little girl in the hospital. Just like always. 

Please keep praying for her.

There is so much more I could say, about what we have learned regarding helping and enabling, or maybe the differences between protecting and teaching, I don’t know. I don’t anything really excpet I miss her and love her so much. And she is so much pain and danger, and I cannot help her. Cannot even give her a nudge right now.

So my days are filled with animals and housework, running and cooking dinner. Unprecedented miracles (how can I tell them?) and awful nightmares. She remains with me every second, an indelible line drawing. My first baby, my friend, and so much more I cannot even express.

Several of you have loved ones in similar peril. I want you to know that every day when I pray for her, I pray for your babies too, no matter how old they are. 

Several of you have reached out to privately share some of your own stories about overcoming, recovery, and straight up the miracle-working Love of God. I cannot thank you enough. It is all oxygen to us.

“And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?
Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea;
And there was a great calm.”
~Matthew 8:26
XOXOXOXO

my bliss list for august

Hello and happy last day of August. I kinda can’t believe what the calendar is declaring, especially compared to what the weather is whispering. But here we are, well past the halfway mark for the year and once again taking stock of so much joy. 

After writing these privately for several months, I’m sharing for the first time my personally curated “Bliss List,” as inspired by an Austin based blogging team The Hungry Yogis. I hope you groove this. 

Farm Stuff…

  • Those chicks that hatched over Memorial Day weekend are growing like happy, bouncy little weeds. Their scruffy feathers have smoothed out, too, and they have found a place in the flock.
  • So much lush, green grass everywhere. Barefoot quality stuff. Cool, velvety lawns devoid of sticker patches. Bliss.
  • Hummingbirds smother the zinnias especially.
  • Speaking of zinnias, they are outstanding this month! As are the sunflowers, oregano, chocolate mint, roses, basil, lemongrass, morning glories, and more. The easiest plants to grow, sure, but no less blissful in their abundance.
  • We have a deer family visit from the Pine Forest several times per week. All month they have gathered at the pond around 5:45 a.m.
  • A baby hawk recently hatched. When it screams at us, we feel like we are in a Heman/Skeletor cartoon.
  • Natasha actually caught and killed a field mouse. It’s a miracle. She paraded it around for days.
  • And we discovered two baby kittens in the barn! Pretty certain that Giant Yellow Forest Cat is the daddy.
  • Fat, healthy, happy horses who (this is a new development) don’t mind fly spray anymore. Bliss for them and for me.
  • This month we collected far more fresh eggs than we could eat and had plenty to share.
  • Herbs, peppers, and leafy greens (kale and arugula) continued to grow the whole month, with constant little harvests. So fun.
  • We picked up an order of fresh hay in early August. The big, heavy bales are fragrant and gorgeous and should last until winter. Bliss to be stocked up.
  • The honeybees are multiplying again and are still building up their honey stores. It’s all pretty magical.
  • Velvet and Lincoln have been staying at the farm!! We all love having them here. So much fun. And it has been a character building experience for Mr. Only Child aka Klaus.
  • My husband has been mowing the grassy areas adjacent to our gravel driveway into curving wildflower meadows. I call it the “Curves and Edges Meadow.” The long, south edge is part of the front field, where Chunk-hi used to live. The earth there is not only healing; it is bursting with new life, a brand new wildness. The poetry is pretty hard to miss.

Personal Stuff…

  • I cut my bangs once this month and did not botch them. Cool.
  • Running has been on a steady uptick, my plantar situation healing nicely and my mileage increasing slowly each week, up to 130.56 for August. Running = bliss.
  • I found a new running trail near the farm! Having options is nice, especially for long-ish miles.
  • My health overall has been great, in fact. I feel easily vibrant, aware of not having chronic troubles. I appreciate it more and more as a gift, not a given.
  • Gutting the Apartment and starting a big redecorating project up there has been deeply satisfying. Like shedding old skin and starting fresh.
  • The book Code Red and all the intense charting I’ve done this summer really came into focus this month. I have enjoyed some fascinating insights and uncanny celestial coincidences. Three or fours women in my life might be about ready for me to stop coercing them to read the book, haha.
  • I am so happy to have made room in my schedule for things that really matter. This particular life improvement showed clearly this past month, and I am grateful. 
  • Good solid contact with my most beloved people. August brought lots of amazing surprises, and I will remember it forever.
  • So many glowing neon signs in life right now, pointing me straight to writing. It has been a month for good, solid alignment of signs, circumstances, and my heart’s desires.
  • August was another month of food triumphs. I could write a book on all the excellent nourishment we enjoyed. Not a cookbook, probably. Just lots of descriptions, ha.

Friends and Family Stuff…

  • We spent lots of quality time with our people this month. From intimate dinners to afternoons with nieces and nephews and of course that 5K downtown, then our big Lazy W Talent Show, August was packed with fun and meaningful socializing. We are surrounded with people who really magnify LOVE.
  • And one Friday night we drove to Norman to see my cousin perform her music live! Such a great night with family, and she is wonderfully talented.
  • I dreamed of my Grandpa all month for some reason. A few times I woke up thinking he was still alive, and that reality stung, but the dreams were sweet and warm and happy. I also happened to find some old letters from him, while cleaning out the Apartment. I think the arugula growing so well has kept him in my every day. Smells, after all, are so powerful.
  • I got to meet Marisa Mohi in person, finally! We had lunch then coffee to discuss bloggish things, then she and Rosie Puppins came to the farm last weekend for our Talent Show. Such a stellar human. I am very happy to know her.

 

Universal Stuff…

  • The eclipse was so refreshing and inspiring. Do you agree? Everyone pausing all day, collectively inhaling and watching the sky, drawn together to focus on something bigger and simpler and far more beautiful than the messes and suffering we have made for each other.
  • Noticing the orchestration of friendships. How sometimes we need someone we have only just met, and they need us too, or other times the familiarity of people who really know your history wraps you up at the perfect moment. The Universe knows us, knows what we need, knows what we have to offer, and is able to weave it all together into a pretty spectacular masterpiece if we relax and allow it to happen. So nice. 
  • This seed of an idea has germinated in my head: That competition can be a waste of energy in intimate relationships. I would love to hear your thoughts on this! But this is on my Bliss List because the notion of complementing each other rather than competing with each other is so sweet and soothing.
My husband snapped this photo of the Oklahoma State Capitol during the eclipse. Unfiltered, so dim and suspenseful.

Friends, thanks for listening. Thanks for checking in. It’s always nice to share the every day blissful details with you. And thank you, Hungry Yogis, for the luscious inspiration!

I hope you are well. I hope if you have loved ones in south Texas that they are safe and secure. 

Trust in Love. Count the tiny pleasures, let them multiply.

“If you are to love, 
love like the moon.
It does not steal the night
it only unveils the beauty of the dark.”
~Isra Al-Thibeh
XOXOXOXO

 

happy birthday to my bookend baby brother!!

Today is my baby brother’s birthday!!

John Philip Dunaway. Born with a dark brown mohawk stripe of hair straight down his infant head. Piercing black eyes his whole life. Long baby legs that grew him into the tallest of our five siblings.

When Phil was little he loved costumes. I mostly remember Superman and the Power Rangers being a big deal. He loved the Dallas Cowboys (and still does, I believe). Not to mention OU football and basketball. My guess is that of all the kids and grandkids, Phil went to more college games with Grandpa Stubbs than anyone.

He was doted on by all of us. Partly because he was the baby; also because he had a series of health scares and surgeries that made us all so grateful he was okay and still with us. But mostly because he was just fun to love, and he always has been. He still is.

My first sister, Angela, holding newborn Philip. She made herself his second mama. xoxo

Of course, there is that business about Mom and Dad being fantastically more lax with his upbringing, allowing contraband in the house like soda and he was allowed to eat dinner by the television. (gasp) Hahaha

Phil (he is known as John, inexplicably, to his adult friends and work colleagues) is the most level and consistent person I know. He can take a salty joke without being offended but dishes it out equally, be warned. He is as solid and golden as people get to be. He always brings excellent desserts to family potlucks. He joins in the fun unassumingly, always loving and friendly to people of all ages. Including strangers. We can always count on him to socialize with our friends, and he reaches out to the entire extended family too. He makes time for people like it’s the easiest thing in the world. On the rare occasion that he cannot attend a gathering, he is sorely missed.

Philip always hugs immediately and many times when we see each other, which is a big deal to me. I look forward to his hugs.

Noone knows more trivia than he does. And he has a brain for cataloging details. I remember when he was young, early grade school age, he would often observe quietly then announce statistics in the room, for example, how many men and how many women, how many people wearing a certain color or stripes versus solids, who is eating the dessert or watching the movie and who is not, stuff like that, but eventually it got more interesting. And he was so precise about it.

He still notices things and weighs them in ways that most of us do not grasp.

My baby brother is a fantastic uncle to his nieces and nephews. Being the youngest by far, he started his Uncle Phil career young, of course, so he has had lots of practice. He loves Jocelyn, Dante, Jessica, Chloe, Kenzie, Greg, and Connor equally and abundantly, and they all love him right back.

Philip never misses a birthday, and he always sends the best cards, often the very expensive musical kind, always perfectly suited to the recipient and scrawled with his name plus a funny personal message. We have saved a box full of such treasures from him.

with Greg in San Diego, 2013

Our baby brother is a prolific traveler, spending his own time and money to visit our coastal sibs also more often than anyone else does. He has been a dedicated Knight of Columbus with our Dad for many years and volunteers generously. I believe if you have ever met him, you are friends with him. Period.

Something I love about Phil is his penchant for exactness in conversation. He doesn’t let us get away with much error or ambiguity, ha! But I love that. And I love that he is a willing texter, too, easy to keep in contact with.

We are the bookend kids of our Flammy, and I like that very much.

I cannot imagine life without Phil’s sweet, solid, funny, intelligent heart.

I hope you know how much I love you, little brother, and I hope we see you this weekend!

Happiest of Birthdays!!
XOXOXOXO

 

trying to stall time and some special things this week

My brain has this notion that if I plan just a few extra events to break up our routine and also take time to write about our day to day living, then time will slow down a bit. Is this true? I mean, is this a sound theory? Because life is so great; we are happily obsessed with 97.46% of its details, but lately the days are slipping by way too quickly.

If you have any authority or expertise in this department, I will bake or work in your garden in exchange for your help. Thanks in advance.

********************

Following a lovely Monday with my nieces, this past Wednesday was so much fun. Whether my time-slowing theory works or not, Wednesday was a carpe-diem victory in every way.

After some basic early chores and a 7-ish mile run in Choctaw, I showered, did a little sewing, then picked up my long-lost gardening buddy Maddie and her youngest brother for a visit at the farm! We spent all afternoon swimming, brushing horses, and eating watermelon. I loved every minute. She is so good with him, he clearly adores her, and watching them together made me super nostalgic for my own siblings.

“Gabe, are you having fun?” “Why wouldn’t I be? We have watermelon!”

Except I was horrible to my own sibs. Cruel pranks, meanness, cold shoulders, you name it. Except with Genny for some reason. And Philip. I was pretty nice to them. Mostly Angela and Joey were just fun to tease, okay?

Ask me sometime about the school bus trick, ha!

Back to Wednesday.

A quick dust up around the house, a change of clothes, and by early evening Handsome and I were on the road to the Lake Hefner area.

Our friends Mickey and Kellie had invited us for dinner, and we all had the best time. We have been at several larger parties with them but alone just the four of us only once before, and we always enjoy their company so much. Wednesday night was such a treat.

More than a treat. Our dinner date turned into a long, meandering, nourishing conversation that left us feeling like we had known each other all our lives.

And the food was sublime, of course. Mickey and Kellie are foodies of the highest order, and they spoiled us with beef tenderloin, bacon-sauteed Brussels sprouts, and roasted potatoes then sent us home with extra portions of dessert, which was made-from-scratch strawberry shortcake.

By the way, Mickey is the friend I mentioned recently who helped me improve my running form! He is maintaining a mind-blowing streak right now. Crazy cool. And I love listening to him and Handsome talk cars.

Kellie feeds my brain with talk about magnetic earthing, total-person wellness, her love of both the beach and Colorado and excellent food, yoga, and a recent foray into Orange-Theory. I haven’t personally tried this workout yet, but her reviews alone get me interested.

While in their home we enjoyed some reluctant and therefore precious greyhound affection:

She’s blending, she’s blending!

After that mid-week burst of socializing, time did slow a bit, lusciously. Thursday thrummed with the leftover energy of all that love exchanged. And writing about it since then has helped press it all into my skin, again.

You write to live life twice, after all.

Since then, routines are keeping us busy. Running all the miles, collecting eggs and admiring the Memorial Day chicks, playing endless games of fetch with Sir Klaussen, watering and exploring the gardens.

 

 

Life is good. Beyond good.

If I cannot slow time exactly, then I will be content to magnify the moments.

Thanks to our friends and family for helping to make our week special. We love you all!

“Kindred spirits are not so scare as I used to think.
It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
~L.M. Montgomery,
Anne of Green Gables
XOXOXOXO