mental photo album

A 50 degree day with 2 feet of melting snow at Silver Dollar City, the sun sparkling off every surface, cold wind on our faces as we screamed and laughed on the roller coaster. Fried potatoes, spiced cider, s'mores made with chocolate chip cookies. My bark owl and mushroom birds for the tree.

The day I first said "I love you" while you were sitting on the rock wall in the park and you sang back your answer.

Driving through the pineapple fields on a Monday morning to the North Shore and loving how happy you were to look and not drive.

40 gallons of water with a 5-gallon bucket and a cheap plastic funnel in a driving rainstorm-- and how bad you felt that you hadn't checked the water tank light inside the camper.

Dinner at that restaurant in the Smokies.

The day you took me to the jewelry store to buy me my ring after 5 years of marriage.

Scrubbing bathrooms and fixing broken plumbing to get the church ready for its first service. Me singing away to whatever CD I had with me and Glorifying God with a toilet brush!

The anxious days after 9/11 when you were stranded half a country away and I just wanted you to come home to me.

Lying in bed trying to coax a new kitten up for petting and the "foot game".

Driving to my mom's with a new puppy on my lap... warm puppy tummies and that funky puppy breath.

Huge platters of fried oysters, clams, scallops and fish at that little place in Plymouth, MA and the sunset on Cape Cod. Fish every day!

Loonies and Twonies in Nova Scotia and a long lazy drive to nowhere. And fish every day!

The day we brought the girls to see the house for the first time and the nights we spent thereafter painting and stripping wallpaper and requesting corny country songs while we worked late every night for the wedding.

**I suppose when I am old and gone a little soft these are the memories I will call up -- and our daughters will smile indulgently, our grandchildren will wonder and they will shake their heads and say "No grandma, I'm not Angie".**