All the windows and doors are open.

Spaghetti sauce has been  simmering all day, the house smells so good!  Using a recipe from the Apples for Jam cookbook.

(Double exposure taken with a pin hole camera that Steve made for me early last year.)

My friend wrote to me today...

"I love when the sun comes out but it makes me itch to just go and sit in the woods and not move"

I would like to be  right here, still enough to fall asleep and then wake up with the magnolias looking down at me.

Spent the weekend at Steve's Grandmothers house (we call her Nanny)  It was her sister (Aunt Pauline) that I wrote about at Thanksgiving.  The last time we went I did not bring my camera, looking back I regret it.  I went to visit Aunt Pauline and watched as Nanny stood over her bedside, holding hands with her and praying.  I would have taken a picture of their hands together.  Nan's mom died when she was young so Aunt Pauline raised her and has remained close to her as a mother figure but also as a sister. 

Since that visit, and the post about her, she has passed away.  I asked Nanny to tell me about her funeral, wishing I had been there.  The most inspiring thing she told me was that when Aunt Pauline was ninety there was no prayer meeting at her church so she started a small group in her own home and they met regularly for prayer for years up until the year she died.

Nanny has so many treasures and things to explore all over her house, old photos tucked here and there. I found an old photo of Nan hiding in the pages of her Bible.  Her father told her that he would not pay for her schooling if she went to Bible college but Nan went anyway.  She worked hard and paid for it herself.  This picture must have been taken during the early years when they had first arrived in Niger Africa, soon after she graduated. 

It is beautiful where she lives in the Spring time. Everything is in bloom.  Nan says the trees look like a bride ready to walk down the aisle all dressed up.

Eti trying really really hard to be brave on the monkey bars.

Steve on the hammock in Nan's backyard.  I can't believe he's mine.