Friendship Corner

On Wednesday, Cora and I went to Meemaw's (Jake's mom's mom) to sew a bit more. After lunch, we went to get the mail on the mule (I'll leave you guessing). It ended up being a trip through the pasture, which turned into a trip through area around their land...country roads and crossing the train tracks twice. When we were almost home, I asked her about the Indian Cemeteries. She said they were out in Oak Grove near where she grew up, and she would show me. It was a day full of one adventure after another.

This is the note she left Peepaw.

Do you see the pole at the far right in this photo? That was where her house was. She said her mom, Goldie, never swept the inside of the house, but she would go out and sweep the yard. Her dad was a crop farmer on a peanut farm.

This was down the road from her house. The Deer driveway goes off to the left, and the road infront used to continue over a creek. If it rained, the creek would rise, so her friends on the other side would stay at her house, or she at theirs until the water went down.

This was at the opposite end of her street. 'They' called it "Friendship Corner" because it was in the middle of friends' houses and the school. They would meet there to play.
Friend Corner Intersection

This is the sign marking the Indian Cemetery. (Just west of Friendship Corner.) The difference is that little houses are built over the graves.


But not all of them. This woman was 115 years old.






This was a shortcut home from school. They would pass to the right of the tree and go up the hill in the distance. In Winter, Meemaw's brother would carry her on his shoulders through the snow. She didn't have shoes suitable for walking in snow, and he would tie sacks around his feet, so he was more protected.

This was where her school was. The front was near the tree to the far left, and it ran parallel to the road. Mrs. Jackson was their teacher. She would bring a bottle of Coke to school for lunch. In the winter she put it out in the snow to keep it cold. Some of the boys (Meemaw's brother included) would go and shake it up so it would fizz out when she opened it.

Meemaw took us to a second cemetery past Holdenville Lake. It is where her grandparents are burried and one of their children are burried.

We found their son, who died when he was 12 after being struck by lightning, but we couldn't find the stones marking their graves. She said it was similar to Roylee's stone. She thinks they've gone back into the ground.


We went back home and watched Cops, one of Meemaw's regular programs, then we made dinner and had dessert.
Peepaw thought Cora would like an Eskimo Pie. She did.

He enjoyed one as well.

We went out and about again after dinner and Cora's bath. This picture is a little blurry, but I love it. She was reaching out her hand to me because she was afraid to step off the patio into the grass. I know she won't always need my help.

This was also the night Cora discovered the moon. She went out on the lawn, said something profound and pointed up.

Goodnight Moon.

Lavender Fields Forever

I woke up on Tuesday morning singing "Lavender Fields Forever." We were going with Mammy (Jake's dad's mom) to the lavender field near Shawnee. I walked into the bathroom and asked if he's been singing the same song. He asked, "Strawberry Fields Forever?"

"Well, sort of," I answered. And then I went about the business of getting ready - which included braiding my hair.

On our way to the lavender field, we went passed "Romberg Land." This was where Mammy grew up. It was really beautiful. The houses weren't there anymore, but it made something seem real to me. All the land we were passing had once been active farms. There's so much history all around us. It reminds me that I am merely a tenant in a land that once belonged to someone and will one day belong to another. I'm happy to be a link in the chain.

The field was beautiful. It reminded me of the feeling I had about the home and land of the sisters in The Secret Life of Bees. There was even an angel in the field, much like the black Madonna in the parlor of the Boatwright home, much like the first Mary I fell in love with in the cemetery at the Painted Church in Hawaii. Those stone faces full of warmth and healing. While at the field, I learned the owner has cancer. I hope healing will come from the beauty she has chosen to surround herself with.

I drank lavender lemonade. I didn't really like the taste going down, but I loved the aftertaste, and it definitely has a calming affect. Cora loved it. She drank a cup and a half. We ate lunch in Shawnee at Benedict Street Marketplace. It is one of my favorites. I loved the food and the atmosphere.

On our way home, Cora was asleep, and I was telling Mammy how I loved her "fat little face." (Cora's face, not Mammy's). I went on to say how ironic it was because I have a serious love hate relationship with my own chubby cheeks. Mammy looked at me and said, but that's what makes you pretty." Could it be - these cheeks that hide my gorgeous cheek bones, and present a near agony when it comes to getting my hair cut a certain way could be the thing that makes me pretty? I don't know if I'm sold entirely, but I did feel proud of them when she said that.

It was a great day, one that I will never ever ever forget.

Cora in the lavender Field

A little Friend we met.



Dear Chesnut Family

I looked through Marissa's pictures of this summer in Kamas, and it made me miss everyone more than I already do. I was so bummed when I realized I wouldn't be able to go this year [again]. Cora was the flower girl in Jake's cousin Katy's wedding. She was adorable in it. She made her way to the middle of the aisle, then reached in her little bucket and threw the flowers out with a ROAR! I can't believe that so many of you haven't met her.

I thought about you and Utah all weekend. It has been far too long since I've been through Provo Canyon, passed Bridal Veil Falls, Deer Creek, and Jordanelle. I miss the smell of bacon cooking in the kitchen, and everyone talking outside. I'm admittedly still afraid of going upstairs alone. I can't help but apply the crude humor I learned best in your presence to many a situation. [Cora just came up to me, cut the cheese and walked away.] Mostly, I miss hearing familiar voices and seeing your faces.

I enjoy keeping up with you on facebook. It's nice to see a little glimpse into everybody's lives. I love you guys, and I can't wait for the next opportunity to get together.

Jake's Blog

It will knock your socks off.

the locust shell

Fabulous Find

We went to the Holdenville Public Library today [Grace M. Pickens Public Library]. They had some free books as well as some for sale. In the free pile, I picked up an older edition of On Writing Well. After I picked it up, I found The Good Earth at the bottom of the box. Then I went into another room with more boxes of books. I came across a Childcraft dictionary, and was almost giddy, then I saw that the whole box was full of the complete Childcraft: The How and Why Library. I went up to the librarian and asked her how much the books were. She said that the hardbacks go for $2.00 each. I quickly started thinking of a number when she said "but if you want the whole set, I can do it for $5.00." We now have the whole 15 book How and Why Library, plus the dictionary. The books are in perfect condition, and are from a later edition. My favorite title of the 15 books is "Mathemagic." Cora is going to need a book shelf all to herself.

Green Tomatoes

On Thursday, I had another sewing day with Meemaw. We [mostly she] made a new* chenille bedspread for our daybed out of an old bedspread she already had. It is so cute. We also made two black pillow cases out for the top. Next week we're going to get together for a few more pillows.

Meemaw and Peepaw have a garden. Our dinner consisted of steak, salad, tomatoes, and roasted green tomatoes, the last being my reccomendation. I'd had green tomatoes for my first time at Sage with Paul, Leslie, and Preston the night before we moved to Holdenville. They were so good. I think they were even better last night. We sliced them about 1/2 inch thick, coated them lightly with oil, and put some salt and pepper on them. Meemaw also had some spicy Seasonall that we dashed sprinkled on. We then roasted them in the oven at 450 for 20 minutes - 10 minutes on each side. Meemaw and Peepaw also have 15 chickens. Peepaw made scrambled ["fluffy"] eggs for dinner on Wednesday. I don't eat scrambled eggs, but Cora had at least 6. It was pretty amazing.

I can't wait to have a big gigantor garden someday. I love that you just walk out and pick the food for your meal. Nothing tastes better than fresh fruits and vegetables. I also like washing dirt out from under my fingernails and mud from between my toes. Tending a garden would be so rewarding.

Secondlight

In the "Simplicity of Spirit" section of Firstlight, there is an essay that has to do with waiting for a large turtle to cross while trying to drive through the mountains of North Carolina. In response to this experience, SMK writes:

"It's easy to operate under the illusion that what we are doing is so important we cannot stop doing it. We think we cannot slow down, especially for something so trifling as a turtle. But that is exactly the sort of thing we must never be too busy for. Stopping is a spiritual art. It is the refuge where we drink life in."

I have had such a rare opportunity both yesterday and today. I had a date with a book and a treadmill at the same time. Yesterday, Jake was home with Cora while I was in the garage [the home of the treadmill], and today I went out while she was down for her nap, which she still is. It feels great. Just a little bit of time to myself does so much. It's refreshing - a sort of recharge. And I like the way it feels to breathe after working out.

I can't read while running, so today I took Ipod out with me. Jake recommended Mozart's Requiem "to really get you going." He lost credibility for "get you going" music until it hit about 1:02. Then I understood what he meant, and my respect for his reccomendation was restored. Not a common choice for working out, I'm sure, but it was really wonderful.

YoYos

I started making fabric yo yos today. They're fun, but I'm going to need A LOT to embellish my curtains. So I started thinking....Wouldn't it be fun if people I know made a few and sent them to me? They're easy to make from scraps of left over fabric, and I'm certain it would be a great sewing project for kids.

Here is a tutorial
[The pattern on the tutorial makes them 4 inches across. I think the round mirror I traced for a pattern was about 6 inches.]

Email me if you are interested, and I can send you an address of where to send them. ;) BrieAnnLundJohnson@gmail.com

[I found the photo here]

Pillows

Today I went to Meemaw and Peepaw's farm to sew. Meemaw is a great seamstress, and I knew she would be a huge help in making the throw pillows for our living room. I was right! We ended up making five pillows out of really fun fabric I picked up at the quilt shop in Estes Park. We made one big pillow, and four smaller ones. They're all rectangular except for one, which is round, and the big pillow is the only one that is NOT tufted. We tufted the rest with mismatching buttons. They are so cute!

I was originally going to buy some fabric from Ikea to make curtains, but I think I might get some white panels and make a bazillion yo-yos to go on them. Hmm...

Vaughn [my father-in-law] is an amazing carpenter/finisher. He just finished a daybed [for the guestroom - it was originally ivory. He painted it black and sanded over the rosettes], a buffet [for the living room - originally mahogany veneer and missing two drawers in the middle. He made a shelf where the drawers were and added two doors then painted it ivory and glazed it], and my great-grandma's roll-top desk [originally...I don't even know...it looked like good grain, but wasn't really - he painted it black and distressed it] All three are absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to post pictures of these pieces.

The last piece my imagination is thinking of is a BIG round table for the living room. It is turquoise in my mind. I found one for $15 in Moore, but I don't know how I would fit it in our car.

Firstlight

I love the writings of Sue Monk Kidd. I've read The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair, and I am currently reading Firstlight. It is a collection of her early writings. There are 13 chapters, each with a theme:

The Crucible of Story
Awareness
Availability
Compassion
Solitude
The Sacred Ordinary
Simplicity of Spirit
Gracious Space
Severe Grace
A Taste of Silence
Standing Fast
Letting Go
Reborn to Love

I finished "Solitude" last night. Being alone is very important to me. I consider myself a loner for the most part. I think it has to do with growing up as an only child. I was on my own for several hours a day after I no longer went to the babysitter, and most of the day during summer. I love to just sit alone and think. I appreciate this quality because it means I'm rarely bored.

A quick quote: "'In solitude you are stripped to your nothing,' a monk once told me, and sitting here, I believe him. I feel stripped of defenses and distractions, all the normal diversions that keep me blissfully unaware of how ragged my soul really is."

I try to live a simple life. I feel lost when I'm running a million miles a minute. There's a certain gratification that comes with accomplishing several tasks in a day, but when they're all over, I never know what has been done to enrich my soul. There are so many distractions all the time. I came across this comic yesterday, and its message really resonated with me and my quest for simple living. The text is from Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. There is too much noise in the world and not enough quiet introspection. I think many are afraid of the empty shell they might find.

A Tale of Religious Fervor

After a big night of partying the night away at Katy's and Cooper's wedding, Jake and I sacked out around 1:30. We got up and ready for church. We went out to the garage a few minutes before we needed to leave, only to discover we had no car seat. It was in the Commander, and Vaughn and Tracey had already left.

We're standing on the empty side of a sunlit garage, staring at an empty backseat - dressed up with no where to go.

After less than a minute, we decide to check out our Holdenville options. There were four within walking distance:

First Baptist
Methodist
Episcopalian
First Christian

We narrowed it down to the Baptist or the Methodist service. I had never been to a Baptist church for Sunday service, so that was that. It was nice, I liked the music, the old church, the people, and the pastor's sermon started out really well, but then after the fifth or sixth analogy (I think we were either to an athlete or a farmer), I started to tune him out.

When we got home, we started making lunch, that's when Tracey called and asked if we stayed home from church. I thought she was asking because she had seen they had the car seat, so I said that we;d gone to the Baptist church. She acted a little surprised. About 10 minutes after I hung up, I told Jake "it would be so funny if the car seat was on the other side of the car. I heard the door to the garage open.

Jake came back in with a smile. It had been there all along, in a corner we didn't see. I'm glad we got to take a nice stroll on a beautiful Sabbath morning.

[First Baptist Church in Holdenville, OK]

A List

2 shirts ($15/14)
2 skirts ($69/29)
Seychelles green flats ($75)
ROBeez Tredz ($40)
Carter's blanket ($17)
Slippers/rattle gift set ($8)

Total: $67.

I love Ross.

Daily Bread


I have loved this picture from the very first time I ever saw it...Somewhere around my sophomore year of high school, I think. Today, Jake and I found it at the thrift store in Seminole Oklahoma. It will proudly hang in our dining room.

When it comes to art, I love things that symbolically express an emotion. We have a photograph that was taken in a tiny village in Ecuador inside a carpenter's shop. This old bent backed carpenter's income came from selling his work to tourists who came through. The day the photographer came by to snap the shot, he had been working on an image of Christ. Christ is in the middle of the work table, without arms affixed. All around him are different arms to choose from. The creator of this piece had to get it just so. This image, along with the back story really make me feel something of Christ - the faith of the old artist. I treasure such things and how they enliven my soul.

Not for the Weary: Another Visit to the Doctor

If you don't want to know about my cervix...

stop reading now.

I went to the doctor again today. I visited with a super sweet OBGYN. We don't really know the really real cause of the pain yet, though we're pretty confident it's a cyst. I'm not too worried about it. The anti-inflammatory has changed the pain from sharp to a dull ache. In addition to my yearly girlie exam, I was also having a spot on my thigh checked out. I noticed it about a year ago, and it's now about the size of a quarter.

So I'm laying with my feet in the stirrups, and we're moving on the the questionable spot. She points to something and says, "Is this the mole you needed me to look at?"

"No, it's one the other side."

"Oh, this little thing, as she touches another spot."

Nope, not that one, it's more a brown spot than mole.

"Up here?"

"Yes, that's it."

"I wouldn't worry about that one, but this one [she goes back to the first one she found] should be removed."

"Oh really?"

"Yes. It has two different colors."

"I don't look down there enough to know."

[nurses laughing]

"Okay, well I can take it off for you."

"Thanks."

"Go ahead and get dressed, and I'm going to come back in and talk to you."

I got dressed, threw my napkin outfit away, and she came back in. She explained that while examining me, she saw that my cervix was a little blue, [which is an early sign of pregnancy if you're wondering why this is important] so she was sending me to the lab to get some blood work done to make sure I wasn't pregnant. After the lab, I scheduled my mole removal.

About an hour later she called to let me know I'm not pregnant, and that my blood work was normal. That is the second time this week I've heard that "delightful" news. If the pain persists after my next cycle, I'm going in for an ultrasound. Now I'm just waiting to hear the results of the pap smear: Yipee!

The end.

Stupid Scales

I passed out in the bathroom last night. I've never done that before. I got up because my side hurt, and I had to tinkle. After the latter on the list was over, I went to get some ibuprofen. While counting them out, I was feeling light headed, oh, oh no, how did I end up on the floor? I remember the sound of the thud of my head hitting the wall, and total disbelief when I opened my hand and was no longer holding the ibuprofen, instead it was spread out all over the floor. Trippy. [How do you spell trippy?]

I went to the doctor today. We excluded my appendix from the list of things on the right side of my abdomen after my white blood count came back okay. No ectopic pregnancy. The last two things left are Mittelschmerz and an ovarian cyst. I definitely know Mittelschmerz, and the pain I felt/feel is nothing like what I've known Mittelschmerz to be. I'm going back on Friday for a more thorough exam. For now I'm taking an anti-inflamatory to help relieve the pain of the cyst, if that is indeed what it is. The pain is not entirely gone, but has reduced itself to a dull ache. Yes. When the doctor pushed on the right side of my tummy, I was not expecting the size of my wince.

When I was being weighed in, the scale said I was quite a few pounds more than I usually am. It wasn't a very thorough scale check, so I'm not too worried about it, but doesn't that nurse know that balancing the scale shouldn't be taken so lightly?

Rest In Peace, Michael Jackson. Rest in peace.

Dear Edmond II Ward

When I used to think about moving, the thing that made me saddest was the thought of leaving you.

You, with your wonderful mix of people, friendly faces, helping hands, loving hearts, were such an amazing extended family. I loved filling my role, in all the various ways I was able to. My first Sunday away from you was bittersweet. We attended and will be attending the Seminole branch before we move to Chicago. It was the branch where Jake was baptized, nearly six years ago, the day after his nineteenth birthday. They are so warm and welcoming, and I hope to be able to serve them as much as possible in the next two months.

I had to remind myself to stay seated when the two young women were released from Relief Society, who I happened to befriend immediately. They both live here in Holdenville, and I actually saw one last night when I was out riding my bike. Her name is Nikki, and she works at a store called David's that sells the best pizza pockets ever. It hasn't even been a week since I last saw your Young Women, my Young Women, and I miss them, and you, and you and you and you, too.

I know that wherever I am is where I'm supposed to be, and I will always be grateful that I got to be part of you. I suppose this is just to say thank you for being part of my world.

Much Love,
BrieAnn

PS: Holdenville has the best bakery I've ever been to. It's called Kalico Kitchen. Come visit us, and I'll introduce you to a Cloud Nine.

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