Day 274 - Project 366

It isn't very often that I get to be Picture of the Day:-)  Happy 35th Anniversary to us!  What a great place to celebrate God's faithfulness, provision and our love for an entire week:-)  We are having a wonderful time already and we've just barely started.  Overcast today but warm.  After church we grilled yum burgers and then took a dip in the ocean.  Later while we were drying out in our beach chairs we spotted four dolphins swimming just offshore a bit - a first for us at HHI!  Later we moved to this covered deck with this amazing few and read and rested - hard life, huh?!

Day 273 - Project 366

 So happy to be back at one of our favorite places on Earth:-)  We arrived around 9 pm last night and though we tried to sleep in this morning our mental alarms went off so we gladly surrendered to wakefulness and after a cup of coffee we headed out for a long walk on the beach to savor its wonders! 

Day 272 - Project 366

Too much fun! I just get really excited about the little things in life:-)  Ever since the Julie friend alerted me to the work of the Dewdler in Coolidge Park who's drawing a picture in the dew of the park of a whole alphabet of animals, I've been a little obsessed.  I stopped at Coolidge before heading to work on Friday morning and was tickled to find she had struck again with a fun drawing of two raccoons!  I was sad that I got there too late to see her in action but to my sheer delight as I was walking down the bridge back to my car she was coming up the bridge to view her work!  I introduced myself, thanked her for the happiness she was bringing to Chattnaooga and asked if I could take her picture. Too Much Fun!  I hope it rains some while we're on vacation so she doesn't get to the end of the alphabet before I get home!  At noon I headed down to Miller Plaza for the annual stop of the Pride of the Southland band on their way to the GA game and you know how much I love a good pep rally!! And after all this Friday fun we loaded up Charis and headed to the BEACH for a WEEK!!  Life.......is.......Good!!  So very grateful for every bit of it!

Day 271 - Project 366

I had to run an errand for David downtown today and couldn't resist pulling out the Nikon (now adorned with an adorable fabric strap cover thanks to DIL Tara:-)  I love these stately old buildings so much!  Sometime when I have more time I just need to wander at leisure and snap away to my heart's content.  Chattanooga just has so many things to love!  My Julie friend shared with me about an artist who's making pictures of animals in the morning dew of Coolidge Park. You know that's on the TO DEW list for tomorrow A.M.!  Tomorrow afternoon we leave for Paradise aka Hilton Head for a week of glorious, total vacay and then the weekend we get back it's the Kudzu Festival.  Life is good my faithful 5 blog readers - life is very good!

Day 270 - Project 366

Just another day at the office:-)  It's been fun to welcome Odysseus to the cast of characters!

Day 269 - Project 366

I have loved loved loved this mural painted on a building on Dodds Ave. for a long time and today I finally stopped to take some (aka tooooo many) pics of it!  The detail is amazing!! I need to go in the building and get the background story!  There are lots of buildings in Chatt with fun murals on them - what a great use of a natural canvas!

Day 268 - Project 366

Lovely walk tonight starting at the Chickamauga Dam - love the way the bands of sun are swathing this stately sentinel!

Day 267 - Project 366

You just never know what you're going to see on the Walking Bridge:-)  This large pink ribbon was hung in the middle of the bridge and all of the smaller lights had a pink covering over them so the bridge had a cool glow as we were walking in the cool of the dusk - we even wore long sleeves!  This change in the weather has been delicious!

Day 266 - Project 366

After a yum yum breakfast at IHOP we headed north to check out a playground and walking trail that a YL leader told me about this week when we went out for lunch. We found the treasure of Wolftever Greenway and the Imagination Station in Collegedale and I'm so thankful for Sara's tip!  The trail runs alongside the creek and also had a duck pond where we saw the blue heron below! It's filled with cute little birdhouses along the way.  There's also a beautiful memorial to all of the branches of the Armed Services.  The playground looks amazingly fun and we might take the grands there when they come for an October visit. The last gift that was waiting for us was this butterfly - my picture program Picasa allows me to add words on top of pics (just discovered this!) so it was fun to combine my two great loves - quotes and photographs! I do love love this quote by Victor Hugo and I totally agree with him!  Ten years of living here and we've barely scratched the surface of new discoveries - I just love that fact!

Day 265 - Project 366

Took a fun little solo field trip to the pep rally for the Chatt Mocs this afternoon!

Day 264 - Project 366

So thankful for Mom and Dad V.W.! This is one of my favorite pictures of them.  They are both struggling with the effects of aging right now.  What an amazing example they've been to our family of a lives lived for the Lord!  Thankful!

Day 263 - Project 366

These are our precious temporary roomies who have lived with us the past 3 weeks!  They have been a joy to have in the house! They are all Young Life leaders who needed a place to land between apartments - we're grateful they landed here!

Day 262 - Project 366

At least once a week we walk from the Boathouse to downtown and get something to eat at one of our favorite restaurants.  The air has hints of Autumn - how great to come home without sweat pouring down our backs:-)  I loved the pastels of the evening sky on our way back to the car!

Day 261 - Project 366

We have met faithfully for 11 weeks - a few interruptions along the way - but always gathering again to read aloud, stumbling over the mismatched verbs and nouns, the foreign languages, stopping in unison at times over a particular piercing passage. We've shared our gratitude, our

 struggles, our tears, and lots of laughs.  And even though we could have finished the book tonight we're saving the Afterword for next week:-)  And we've decided that even after we read the last word of this amazing book we'll still get together probably till Jesus comes.  I think that fact is a really really big thing to be grateful for.

Day 260 - Project 366

Sherri and the boys came for church and lunch ~ after worshipping the Lord together at New City,  the house was filled with laughter, conversation and a very poor rendition of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" - all of this makes my heart burst at the seams.

Day 259 - Project 366

On Saturday I spent 3 delicious hours in a little piece of heaven on earth at Ms. Ruby's gardens where several artists were painting - there is a beautiful French word for that activity that I will look up and add soon.  I call it a little piece of heaven for several reasons - one of which is that time seems to stop there as the stillness, except for an occasional train whistle on the nearby tracks, reminds me to breathe deep again and remember what really matters.

Day 258 - Project 366

Day 257 - Project 366

Fun date night at the home opener for the Mocs and a big win of 35 - 0!

Day 256 - Project 366

Beautiful Chattanooga!

Day 255 - Project 366

The sight of this stately building never gets old and tonight the evening sun was spotlighting it!  D.A. and I took a lovely walk from the Boathouse to Mellow Mushroom for dinner.  This morning one of my nieces suggested on FB that we live in an awareness of the Lord's presence today.  He speaks to my heart through His amazing creation and it was fun to take pictures along the way of His handiwork.

Day 254 - Project 366

Beautiful Sunset as seen from the roof of Melissa's apartment complex!

Day 253 - Project 366

It was fun to meet Joe's friend Ingrid and her daughter Zoe this weekend!

Day 252 - Project 366

Here's some of the cooking crew at the Retreat - so fun getting to spend time outside of the office with these amazing young adults!

Day 251 - Project 366

Great retreat in every way!  Love the new location....lots and lots of leaders came including some of the brand new ones.....so fun cooking for college kids.....sweet times of sharing.....thankful!

Day 250 - Project 366

Tonight this room will be packed full of Chattanooga Young Life leaders laughing and talking and listening, making memories at another Leader Retreat weekend.  We have found a special space for all of this at a farm up in Cookeville.  D.A. and I did a fact finding mission up there last night to check it out and bring some groceries for our time there.  Rustic but Really Nice!

This is what's on their custom made Corn Hole boards :-) The verse referenced says, " Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the Lord helped us."  The cabin is full of good words, antiques, crosses and candles - the cabin is full of some of my favorite things.

We stopped for dinner before getting to the cabin at one of our favorite finds, the Cookie Jar Cafe - love this view outside the restaurant's window.

Day 249 - Project 366

The Blue Book.......such an impactful book that introduced me to life-changing authors.  Our small group is going to go through " Devotional Classics" compiled by Richard Foster.  Bryant brought a copy to our kickoff dinner tonight and encouraged us to look in the Table of Contents to see all of the different writers we would be reading and it was fun to see the now familiar names of C.S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, St. Augustine, John Baillie, Evelyn Underhill....new old friends....I am grateful!

Day 248 - Project 366

I love the subtle change of the seasons.  During our after dinner walk along the river there were so many signs of early Fall. We started at the Boathouse and walked up to Bluff View.  The bakers at Bluff View Bakery were busy putting bread out to rise for the night and the lights inside were a warm glow on a cloudy night.  This is one of my favorite buildings. The sight and smell is always so inviting.

I also love to watch the greenery change along the railing of the Sculpture garden - in just a few weeks these leaves will be a dark, crimson red.

The Southern Belle slipped quietly by.  The water was as still as glass tonight. A wonderful walk with D.A. - holding hands on the slippery rain washed boardwalks, content and thankful.