Team Mancy

When Ashton first started talking we loved all the special names he had for us. I was Aunt Mancy. Lizz was Zizz. Midori was Peto. We don't know why.

Zizz, Peto, Claudette and I became Team Mancy.

Zizz is home for the short break between spring and summer semesters, so most of Team Mancy is together again and all is right with the world.

Now we're off to help with the church yard sale. In the rain.

On this day ...

I walk past my pantry door several times a day. Every now and then this hanging catches my eye and I have to stop and read it, even though I must have read it hundreds of times by now.

This is one of the many small things I loved about my house when I first toured the interior.

The previous owners moved here in the 1970s when they were in their 60s. A second marriage for both. I wonder if they received this as a wedding gift or picked it out together. I imagine them hanging this up and tracing the words with their fingers.

I think of the family celebrations and other gatherings that were celebrated here for about 30 years and the ones I've hosted since I've been here and wonder how many people have read those words and found meaning in them.

This is my favorite kind of to-do list. I think it's lovely.

This is NOT a lampshade

Misty calls this my lampshade. As in, "Grab your lampshade and get your butt moving so we can go to lunch."

Aunt Linda included this in the very thoughtful broken-ankle care package she sent me earlier this year. Because she broke her foot last year and knew how important backpack-y like things would be when I was crutchering around for 2 months. I love this bag, and have received numerous compliments on it from fashion-savvy people.

Fashionable and functional, it holds a lot of important stuff:

1. Cell phone
2. Little book for important notes, story ideas, grocery lists, prayer concerns, etc.
3. My "round 2 it"
4. Take-out menu from the creperie, church bulletin, misc. receipts and envelope of gift cards
5. Camera bag
6. Wallet
7. Ibuprofen
8. Lizard Lips lip balm
9. Keys
10. Gwen Frostic note cards
11. Various ID cards
12. Combination lock for the Y
13. Gin-gin candies
14. Altoids
15. Flash drive
16. Clinique bag with small Clinique Happy and Burt's Bees lip balm

It is so NOT a lampshade.