Today I’m honored that an everyday epistle post is being featured on The Couture Cowgirl.
Celeste Settrini, the site’s creator, is blessed with a positive outlook and energy for life.
She is the founder and president of Couture Cowgirl Communications and fashion editor of Equestre Magazine.
You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter @couturecowgirl7. Or catch her on Rural Route Radio with Trent Loos hosting Fashion Friday.
Or speaking to school children in San Francisco and business people in Sacramento about farming. Or leading the charge as a past president of California Women for Agriculture. Or working on her family ranch in Salinas.
She’s a busy bee. And I’ll bet she wouldn’t have it any other way.
I hope someday when I meet Celeste in person she’ll show me the ropes of being a real cowgirl. But first I need her advice on a good pair of gorgeous cowgirl boots!
Now mosey on over to The Couture Cowgirl, meet my friend Celeste, and read about my favorite fashion strategy in Many Happy Returns.
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. Ecclesiastes 4:9 NLT
Sometimes what I really need to do is run away. Travel can hold the ticket to a clearer, better perspective.
over Alaska
I may go to a faraway place and detox from the real world. But there are closer, shorter voyages that achieve similar, lifesaving results.
Drive 200 miles to see an old friend. Spend the hours alone in the car. Singing with the radio. Turning it off to discuss things with God. Questioning. Talking it over. Being heard. Listening.
Or take a long lunch to catch up with someone I haven’t seen in a while. Break down the state of the world as we know it. Pick up where we left off as if the time never passed at all.
Or simply bow out of the room for five minutes. Walk around the block. Step back. Breathe. Remember what’s important. Re-engage with peace.
on the beach in Bali
My favorite psychology professor in grad school once told my class a secret. He said he recommended depressed people go to the mountains or the ocean. I imagine the plains, desert, or forest would work as well.
It is in such places they could come face to face with how small they are and how big God is. Surrender to it and find refuge. Then come home able to move—even if ever so slightly—forward.
Perspective is easy to lose, but not so hard to regain either.
Here you thought it was gone forever, but look. There it is a few miles up ahead.
God’s love is meteoric,
His loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
His verdicts oceanic.
Yet in His largeness
nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
slips through the cracks. Psalm 36:5-6 The Message
The incredible photos in this post are compliments of Janis and Jeff Jones, my traveling friends who see the value in venturing.
Traveling with the Jones
Between the two of them, they’ve traveled to 80 different countries, all 50 states, and 175 cruise ports around the world.
“Travel, for us, is about personal growth,” says Janis. “It gets us out of our routines and our comfort zones; it broadens our horizons and breaks down our misconceptions. Through our travels, we’ve found people are basically the same despite living under vastly different circumstances and cultures.”
Ryan Goodman riding horseback on the west slopes of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming
There’s a new everyday epistle post out. But it’s not here where it usually is. Today we’re taking a field trip. A blog-cation.
Saddle up and click on over to Ryan Goodman’s excellent site Agriculture Proud.
Ryan is a real cowboy. Comes from the hearty stock of an Arkansas cattle ranching family. Smart, too. He’s currently in graduate school at the University of Tennessee.
And Ryan is social. His Facebook page I am Agriculture Proud has more than 1,400 followers. Find him on Twitter at @AR_ranchhand.
Ryan Goodman is Agriculture Proud
Ryan is also tall. He’s six feet four inches of tall, dark, and bachelor. Said he’s not ready to settle down yet. Single ladies, see if you can help him with that, will ya?
Humor and matchmaking aside, I’m honored to be guest posting on Ryan’s site today because he has a passion for telling the true story of American agriculture. And he’s invited some friends to join him this month.
So come along with me to Ryan’s cyber ranch. Meet a real cowboy and find out why I’ve been known to follow ag blogs, write about farm stuff, and collect photos of barns and livestock on Pinterest.
Was reminded this week of one of the many reasons why need each other and the blessing of friendship.
dillon’s daffodil
Friends speak truth into my life. Truth that may be obvious to everyone except me. Truth that frees me indeed.
Alex was that kind of friend. I remember the first time I saw him in my old neighborhood. A cheerful, elderly gentleman walking his dog Bo.
He reached out. Always had time to speak and to care. Left anyone he met along the way with a kind, “God bless!”
Alex refused to talk politics or religion with me. The fall we met nearly 10 years ago, I was knee-deep in a rigorous study of the Old Testament history of Israel. Alex was Jewish, and I was dying to dish with him. But he wouldn’t have it. Didn’t want anything to risk a rift between neighbors.
Fast forward to the next fall. After years of infertility, my husband and I were thrilled by the birth of our son. Then colic put a quick damper on our joy for the beginning months.
By spring, the colic was over and all was well again. I was out with the baby one day when Alex came by with Bo. He stopped and talked with me in my yard among the daffodils and hyacinths.
I told him about the discouraging experience of dealing with a colicky baby. How my son cried and cried. How there was no way to comfort him. How I felt like a bad mom.
“It’s sad for you after waiting so long for a child,” said Alex, “to lose the first months with him to colic.” His wise eyes soft with empathy.
No one had said that to me until then, at least not in a way I could hear it. No one had tapped into the emotion of the experience and spoken the truth of it. Colic is sad, even devastating. For the baby, yes. But also for the parents. Also for me.
The content and care of his words was powerful. Alex called out what happened. Gave me permission to feel the pain. Freed me to move on.
Other friends—new and old, close and far—have done this throughout the years and even this week in matters big and small. Probably without realizing it.
Out of nowhere comes that lightning bolt sentence. That straight shot of truth.
It was legalism. You were hurt in ministry by legalism.
Look at the color! It’s perfect! I love that cranberry.
The state of North Carolina may have been the first to grant me a license, but I learned to drive in Chicago.
There you better get up and go or you’re going to be run over. They drive at breakneck speeds. Play chicken turning left at intersections. Dodge thousands of pedestrians and maniacal taxis.
Had to take it down a notch when we moved to St. Louis. Some folks there drive fast, only that’s not the real issue. The daredevil maneuver of drivers in the Lou is gunning it through red lights.
See yellow? In St. Louis, that means speed up. Like a bull rushing the matador in anticipation of red.
For the most part, Wichita drivers are safe drivers. They seem to take it easy. Five or ten miles below the speed limit easy.
A new friend I’ve made here is another big city transplant. Like me, she’s adjusting to the Wichita crawl. Her explanation for the slow driving is that it only takes 15 minutes to get anywhere in Wichita, so why hurry?
One morning I pulled out of the carpool line to see my friend’s SUV a few cars up on the road. The light turned green and we bolted through.
My Chicagoan stirred. “C’mon. You can take her!”
20 mph
Chrissie Hynde belted out Middle of the Road on Sirius XM 80s on 8. I knew my friend was listening to the same station in her starship. We built this city on rock and roll.
“Let’s see what you got,” I said under my breath. Me and Cranberry Mary versus her and Silver Fox.
We zoomed around the curve at Hawker Beechcraft. Ducked into the tunnel beside the airfield and whoosh! Out like rockets.
Cruised the four-lane drag down Central. Into the great, wide open. Cranberry and Silver, streaks across suburbia.
It all came to an end when I turned off north toward my house. “Until next time, Silver Fox,” I said as she disappeared into a cloud of cosmic dust.
starship
Two corporate wives. Multiple relocations. Baptized in the guerrilla warfare of city driving in concrete jungles. Set free to roam in slick SUVs on flat stretches of Kansas highway. Wind them up and watch them go.
Truth be told, we were probably clocking 45 in a 40 tops. With everyone else driving 30, we may as well been flying supersonic jets.
We weren’t behaving recklessly or irresponsibly. We were coming home from carpool for goodness sakes.
And we weren’t knowingly racing either. At least she wasn’t.
My days are swifter than a runner;
they flee away; they see no good. Job 9:25 ESV
Fasten your seat belts and coast on into the weekend with J.J. Fad and Supersonic. The S is for super and the U is for unique!
This is a letter my dearest in the world friend gave me the last time I saw her. Four weeks ago, December 18, 2011.
unopened
There it sits. Pristine. Unopened.
I couldn’t open it the last evening we were together with our families in St. Louis because I would cry. We both knew it would be a long time before we’d see each other again. So I saved the letter to open it later.
“We’ve been here almost a month, and you’re handling this move really well,” said my husband last week. “You’re not crying.”
No, I’m adopting the Midwestern attitude. Putting my head down to forge a life on the prairie. Onward and upward. Just. Work. Harder.
If I open that letter, I’ll disintegrate.
I’ll cry big tears when I think of all that’s been lost. At the same time, in front of me stands so much that’s been gained. The gains hold the tears at bay in a bittersweet tension.
Before we moved, parents from our son’s class at school had a going away party for us. My son asked why they were having it.
“Is it a birthday party?” said my seven-year-old.
His friend, whose family was hosting the event, was with us that day. “No,” he said. “It’s a you’re-going-away-forever party.”
Female Orpheus Fountain Figure by Carl Milles as seen at Missouri Botanical Garden
I intervened. “We’re not dying. We’re only moving.”
But moving is a sort of dying. All changes are. A beloved Bible teacher of my past used to say we first experience change as loss.
We held it together, as did most of our friends, through our goodbyes. Then there was that moment the day I rushed to the groomer’s to pick up the dog.
We wanted to have Ella groomed one last time before we moved. As I paid the sweet shop owner, told her goodbye and thank you for all her years of service to us, she began to sob.
“We’re really going to miss you and Ella,” she said.
Fear shot through the muscles in my face. Confusion billowed up in my brain. Not the groomer. She just couldn’t lose it. No, no, no.
“There’s something about those terriers,” she said and boohooed some more.
“We’ll miss you too,” I said helplessly. “I don’t know how we’ll ever replace you.”
And we won’t. We’ll find another groomer. We’ll find another salon, dry cleaner, church, and circle of friends.
moving truck
Another, but not a replacement.
That’s what I tell myself to keep from opening that letter. At least for now.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34:18 NLT
Me, I’m a part of your Circle of friends. By Edie Brickell.
Il Vicino was one of our favorite restaurants in St. Louis. But Il Vicino had a series of unfortunate incidents.
First, a wayward car plowed through the outdoor dining area and right into the restaurant. Not good.
A couple years later, Il Vicino had a fire and closed indefinitely. Not good at all.
I’ve eaten hundreds of meals at Il Vicino. When it was just my husband and me. When we were expecting our baby.
When we celebrated our baby’s first birthday with friends. When we were without a kitchen for six months during the big house remodel.
Have our order memorized. Two house salads with gorgonzola, a Da Vinci pizza, a children’s penne pasta with marinara on the side, a regular Coke not diet, an iced tea and a lemonade. For here or to go. Always the same.
As the months dragged on after the fire and the restaurant didn’t reopen, I knew I’d never eat at Il Vicino again. There were other locations, but not in St. Louis.
It was sad, but survivable. We moved on to other pizza places.
Dewey’s opened a location in University City. Pi opened in the Loop. And there was always good old Papa John’s or Domino’s.
St. Louis folks will notice Imo’s missing from our list. In our nearly 13 years here, we never did acquire a taste for St. Louis style pizza so many of you love.
Anyway, we moved on. Same way we did when we left Sir Pizza in High Point, North Carolina, and Giordano’s in Chicago.
il vicino wichita
Then we found out we’d be moving on literally. Our relocation to Wichita was imminent. We journeyed west for a visit.
You’ll never guess where we ate pizza in Wichita.
That’s right. Il Vicino. They have two locations there. The only two in the state of Kansas.
MapQuest revealed Il Vicino is less than five miles from our new house.
Memories flood me in these final days as a resident of St. Louis. I visit the places we’ve frequented and drive the roads we’ve traveled for more than a decade. They’ve become sacred in a way.
It’s the memories and the people that make them so. It’s the life that was lived there. Like our bodies, these places are dust but for the lives that were lived there. The living gives them meaning.
Translated, the Italian il vicino means the nearby.
leaving university city
Wichita, St. Louis, Chicago, North Carolina—they’re not so far apart. I hold them in the nearby. In my memory, my heart. I will add to them as long as I am alive.
Come near to God and he will come near to you. James 4:8 NIV
The dealer couldn’t find White Diamond, but did acquire Dark Cherry. A red car. Maybe I could do this.
The day came. Dark Cherry arrived. “You’ll fall in love with it!” said the salesman.
I saw it. One word: burgundy.
“It looks burgundy,” I said.
“No, no,” said the salesman. “It’s red.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s more red than brown,” I said. “But it’s not true red.”
“Oh, that’s just dirt,” he said. “Let me have it washed and you’ll see it’s red.”
While we waited, I discussed the dilemma with my husband.
blue undertones
“You know I’m a Winter. Brownish-red is not my color. I would really feel more at home in gray.”
“Honey, Dark Cherry is your color,” said my husband. “It isn’t brown. It has blue undertones.”
I wanted a car. I didn’t want burgundy. Maybe it wasn’t burgundy. But it wasn’t red either.
“See?” said the salesman. “It’s red!”
Freshly-washed Dark Cherry glistened in the sunlight, casting out any hints of brown.
This is silly, I thought to myself. Grow up and be content with Dark Cherry. So I did.
Still, the whole color thing ate at me. Had I compromised too much? Gone along to get along? The stars were aligned: I was there, my husband was there, the car was there. How could I walk away?
In other news, one of my BFFs gave birth to her third child. She’d entered no man’s land—the first weeks of an infant’s life when you take care of baby and not much else.
Armed with my package wrapped in pink gingham, I drove to her house to deliver the gift. She cradled the baby while we caught up.
“And you got a car,” she said as she peeked out the window. “Look at the color!”
life is a bowl of cranberries
“Yeah,” I said. “I wanted gray but they didn’t have it.”
“It’s perfect,” she said. “I love that Cranberry.”
Yet another reason why she’s my BFF. How I’ll miss her when we move.
Hadn’t mentioned my angst over the intricacies of brown, burgundy and true red. Didn’t matter.
She saw the best and called it out. Named it. Reframed it. No more neutrals for me.
Now I’m quite taken with Cranberry. Decided to call her Mary. She has a bike rack for Cindy so the girls can be friends.
Cranberry Mary Momma Mobile. Watch out. Here she comes.
Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a ruling rightly given. Proverbs 25:11 NIV
Linger awhile longer and enjoy The Cranberries with me. Anyone else think it’s ironic a group called The Cranberries filmed a music video in black and white?
So do I. My husband and I have developed quite an appetite for Vietnamese food during our tour in St. Louis. From Mai Lee to Little Saigon Cafe, I’m convinced there’s an addictive ingredient in the recipes. Crave.
Gracious gifts. We all receive them. Much more than we deserve.
One of the best gifts I’ve ever received was and still is my dog Ella. Nearly 10 years ago, she was a birthday gift.
She was too young to live with us until after my actual birthday. So on my actual birthday in December 2001, I received two little stainless steel bowls. One for her food and one for her water. Sheer giddiness.
Mary, my dear friend of more than 20 years, believes Ella appears in my blog more than my son.
Jealousy may motivate Mary’s thinking. I’ve never mentioned her by name in a post until this one.
Just teasing about the jealousy part. You know I love you, Mary. Tried and true friendship is another one of those gracious gifts. Now back to Ella.
Today Ella the best birthday gift becomes Ella the first guest blogger here on everyday epistle. She weighs in with this short reflection about chewies.
Hello. I’m Ella the cairn terrier. I live with my best friend Aimee who writes this blog. I can read and type.
Chewies are my favorite thing to chew. If one is good, better are two. Rawhide, rawhide, rawhide three. Four, five, six, seven, eight chewies for me.
Proof that too much of a good thing is simply more.
Until next time, chew on this…
me & mary
From His abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. John 1:16 NLT
It’s Sunday, and I’m taking the Sabbath off with the fam. Normally wouldn’t post, but figured a note of gratitude would be in keeping with the Spirit of the day.
autumn clematis in the alley
Thank you, Chicago Public Library, for reposting Confessions of a Bibliophile on your Facebook and Twitter feeds this past week. The traffic generated boosted this post into the top 12 for this site (see the list in the right sidebar).
And who could forget when the agricultural community embraced Milk Wars? It was number one until WordPress featured I Like My Bike on Freshly Pressed.
In fact, every post on the top 12 list has one thing in common: each was shared with others by readers who liked what they read here.
This will come as no surprise to the social media savvy. But to those of us who are still learning the ropes, the exponential power of social media is astounding. The term viral is apt.
Like something you see? Share it with others who might like it too. That’s how the community grows.
Speaking of community, heartfelt thanks goes out to Southern Guilford, spread now from coast to coast. Your response to Indian Summer makes me doubly homesick. I’m grateful to have grown up where I did when I did.
So thank you, readers, whoever and wherever you are for reading, commenting and sharing. I hope you enjoy your time here as much as I do.
And most importantly, thank you, God, for Your many blessings to us all, in spite of our failings, each and every day.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend. See you back here soon.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all His benefits—
Who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
Who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:2-5 NIV
Today is Friday in September. Football season. My maroon and gold pom poms are calling.
They beckon me from the trunk of a 1980 maroon Camaro with gold pinstriping. When my dad selected the car, I believe he thought it needed to match my uniform.
The days are warm and sunny. Might think it’s still summer.
Then you catch a chill, the crisp crackle of fall on its way. The changing of the guard approaches. My body remembers it’s time to report to the field.
Hear the drumbeat of the marching band. Spirited cadence, rebel yells. Evening now. Almost time for the game to begin.
The home team bursts out of the locker room and breaks through the paper banner stretched across the end zone. Wild bucks, padded up and set loose. Stampeding leather cleats on sparkling green grass.
The horn section screams and flashes silver. The bleachers applaud. The pom poms dazzle and shake.
At some point in the pre game festivities, we cheerleaders gathered on the field. Maybe the football team too. It’s been years, I’ve been a long time gone, and I can’t remember exactly who joined the circle. But I do remember what we did.
Together we said The Lord’s Prayer before kickoff. A tradition and a covering over our game. Over our youth.
still fits!
So very politically incorrect. Only we didn’t know that then.
Those were the days we could still call our team the Indians. Now it’s called the Storm.
How long, I wonder, until the National Weather Service complains? Good thing the replacement mascot wasn’t an animal or we’d have PETA picketing the commons.
And that’s just a wee little pocket in North Carolina.
Dare I question the state university due east of my current home in St. Louis? When will the Fighting Illini become the Fearsome Gully Washers or the Frightening Thunder-Boomers?
We weren’t perfect, but we were good kids. We proudly called ourselves the Indians, believing it meant brave, strong, fierce warriors. We wouldn’t have taken the name if we’d believed it to be oppressive or offensive.
Looking back, I hope no one felt oppressed or was offended. It pains me to think folks would actually take it that way.
cheer detail
In 2004, the Guilford County Board of Education prompted by the North Carolina State Board of Education and the North Carolina Mascot Education & Action Group (yes, there is such a thing) voted to “retire” the mascot that had represented my school since 1926.
So it changed. A lot has changed since I left my pom poms behind.
A couple years ago, the homegirls threw an awesome 20th reunion party for our class. In between all the hugging and laughing and reuniting, we gathered.
Before the dancing and the open bar, we prayed. A tradition. A covering.
maroon & gold
When I think of those friends, those times, my high school—to me, we’ll always be the Indians, brave and strong, on a crisp, early autumn Friday night.
How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. James 4:14 NLT
