this side of sunshine: Random Things

Special Friends

Last Shabbat morning before Sophie woke up, Sara and I got out some photographs to look at. She enjoyed seeing all the holidays we have celebrated as a family and seeing family and friends through the years.

We found a photograph of a little girl that Sara has come to think of as a friend. She really likes her a lot. She is in her Torah class and they see each other each week. The little girl is about ten I think, and has Downs syndrome.

Sara doesn't know she is special. To her, she is simply a friend.

In the photograph her friend is three years old - the same as Sara is now. She kept saying, "She was 3, and I am 3." It was very cute.

I asked her if she wanted to take the photograph to Torah study and show it to her friend, and she said yes. So, when we got there she took it to her friend and said, "This is you when you were 3 like me."

It was a very precious moment and one I will always remember.

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Freecycle Friends

Freecycle is one of my favorite yahoo groups. It is an online organization that is for the purpose of keeping things out of the landfill. The way it works is members post things they no longer use or want and other members can take them use them, thus extending their usefulness, and keeping them out of the landfill.

I have received some really nice things from other members. Our kitchen flooring at the cottage came from freecycle. So did Lance's xbox. We have also picked up a swing set, the extra fridge we have in the garage, and some more things I can't remember right now. We just picked up a toilet that will be installed in the cabin this summer.

I have also given away about a garage full of things. I have not had a garage sale since learning about freecycle several years ago. And I have met some really nice people.

The toilet we just picked up last week was from the granddaughter of one of my mother's friends. I didn't know that until we got to talking. I was best friends with her uncle's wife when we were in junior high school. And I saw her grandmother when she came to visit my mother in the hospital. The old saying, "It's a small world" really is true.

It has been about a year since I met another friend. She came to pick up something I had posted (I don't remember what it was) and we got to visiting. We then had coffee together a couple of weeks later, and now, a year later, I consider her to be a dear friend.

She has come to my house and cleaned my filthy oven when I was having guests, and she brought me soup and love when I had my eye surgery.

I only wish we had more time to visit, have coffee, and spend time together. We both have busy schedules, so don't see each other often, but I am thankful for our friendship and hope we will have more time this summer.

A couple of weeks before Passover there was a request for postage stamps for a collection. A Dad was trying to get enough stamps to start a collection with his daughter as a birthday gift. He mentioned that he wanted to find a hobby they could enjoy together.

I had saved my own childhood stamp collection and emailed him that I would like to give it to him and his daughter. Daddy had started me on the collection when I was in the first or second grade. I can remember having such a great time sitting with Daddy, looking over the stamps, putting them in the book he had bought for me. I kept up the collection for several years. I also worked on a small coin collection with Daddy when I was a little older. He has been an avid coin collector all my life.

When Laurie was in school I passed my stamp collection to her, and she enjoyed it for a short time. I have mentioned it to my children and grandchildren, but there has been no interest. So, my stamps have been in the top of the closet for many years, without being worked on.

I never wanted to give the collection to a charity store for fear someone would just throw it in the trash, and I never posted it on Freecycle because I didn't want someone to take it simply because it was offered without having an interest.

So, when I read the request from a Daddy wanting to work on a hobby with his daughter, I knew they would be the new owners of my collection. I emailed him to come and pick it up, telling him how important the collection is to me. I told him I hope the two of them have as much fun as Daddy and I did.

I went to Littlefield to see Mother and Daddy one night and was telling them about my plan to give my stamp collection to this man and his daughter. Daddy got out a big notebook, filled with hundreds of stamps I had never seen. He had been buying stamps for my collection for years after we stopped working on them together. I didn't know it until that night.

After the young man came to pick up the stamps he emailed me and said he wanted to bless me with a cake. He said he is a cake artist. I told him that it really would be a blessing because Lance and Laurie would celebrate their birthdays the week Passover ended and they would love to have a cake. For several years their birthdays have come during Passover when we don't eat anything with flour in it, thus eliminating birthday cakes.

So, we set a date for him to deliver a cake to our house for their birthdays. He and his little girl came to drop off the cake. They spent about an hour visiting with me, and we had a lovely visit.

Last week he emailed me and said they are having fun with the stamp collection He said they are both enjoying spending time together. I hope they have as much fun and Daddy and I did.

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My Sister's Street

My sister lives on a very pretty street in Amarillo. It is red brick, and there are beautiful trees lining both sides of the street. I enjoy driving down the street when we go to visit.

I have always like red brick streets. When we were little girls we would visit our grandparents in Amherst. The main street was red brick. I liked the sound of the car tires going over the bricks.

I enjoy driving down Broadway here in Lubbock, and the main street in Post for the same reason. Red brick streets remind me of the "good ole days" of my childhood somehow.

(Matthew McConaughey bought a house on this block last year, but my sister has never seen him there.)

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Pictures That Make Me Smile

My shooting lesson (yes, it's a real gun, no, it's not mine)

Dropping off baby clothes in a charity shop in Tzfat Israel

Ethan and Sara at the 2008 flag display (The park flooded and the program was cancelled. We, along with many other people, helped to take down the flags. The kids walked through the water and we caught this adorable shot of them.)