wreath / tree

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

I hope you will not think me unkind for not visiting. I promise to stop by soon. I sure have missed you all. / it's fun, each year, pulling out the ornaments one by one - remembering. dad gives me a new silver "hand and hammer" ornament each year and my oma gives me one each thanksgiving - something representing my interest that year.

traditions - old / new

solo post- L
The table was decorated with red, white and blue and everything looked very festive. I was there when their guests arrived (two couples I've known since I was a little girl) and I smiled when I saw that they all were wearing their patriotic colors – one man even had a t-shirt that said "Proud to be an American". My dad has a red, white and blue striped shirt that he's been wearing on this day for years – I love that he does that. My parents were having a get together at their house and prepared a traditional 4th of July dinner with barbecue pork (cooked on the green egg), potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans and corn on the cob. My dad traditionally bakes an apple pie for the 4th of July and this year was no different. And I have to say it looked delicious. (btw, T was very disappointed that there was none left over for her).
I'm not much of a cook but I love to look at new recipes. I clip them out of magazines, thinking that one of these days I will try them out. In fact, I clipped a recipe just yesterday that I saw in Southern Living. T and I both thought it sounded so good. It wasn't my party but I thought this recipe with watermelon was just what they needed to complete the meal. It was called Watermelon, Mache and Pecan salad and had a pepper jelly vinaigrette with gorgonzola cheese and toasted pecans – sounded like the perfect refreshing summer salad on a day when watermelon is a tradition – and so much less messy too. I prepared it for them and it was every bit as delicious as it sounded. I think it's going to be my new tradition for the 4th of July. Do you have a traditional dish you prepared on this day?

celebrate mothers

solo post - L

"My mother is a poem
I'll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother."
~Sharon Doubiago

Today, looking at all of the buds on my rose bushes, I'm remembering the tradition of wearing a rose to church on mother's day - a red one if she was living and a white one if she had pasted away. I can remember with fondness my dad helping us find the perfect roses from the bushes in our yard. We would walk in proudly wearing the red rose buds we had picked – they really were not always the finest of roses but to us they were perfect, just like out mom. And on those Sunday mornings the pastor would ask all of the mothers to stand, and then calling out numbers of children gradually the mother with the most children was left standing. Also the newest and oldest mother in the congregation were recognized. They don't do that any more and no one wears roses honoring their mothers, not at our church anyway. Seems so many of these older traditions have faded in time and I think it's sad.
For the last several years my mom and I have had a tradition of celebrating mother's day by going on a garden tour together. This year the one we're going to is the High Museum of Art’s Artful Garden Tour next weekend. I'm excited to see these fabulous gardens, to learn new plants and get ideas for my own yard. Do you have a special tradition for mother's day? However you choose to celebrate I hope it's beautiful in every way.