Evening Delight

A couple of years ago, as I've written before, Jim and I enjoyed a fabulous vacation to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State. We stayed a week in a house on Orcas Island with our friends, John and Linda, enjoying the most wonderful fresh seafood, exquisite views, peace, and tranquility.

One evening we sat at the window of the New Leaf Restaurant in the Outlook Inn on Orcas Island. The food was spectacular and the view mesmerizing as the sun began to lower on the opposite side of the island, creating an amazing changing of the light on the bay. Colors went from blues and grays and greens, to pinks, corals and yellows. 

It was a spectacular display of God's artistry. But, the best was yet to come. After dinner we drove to the the beach where the sun was setting. Many had come out to view the show. It was getting dark but water and sky were on fire with the light from the descending sun. Oranges, reds, violets, pinks consumed water and sky, a sunset unlike any I'd ever experienced.

 

On returning home and viewing my pictures, I found it difficult to pick the first one to paint.  I love all the colors but decided the one without all the brights best suited me.  I chose the one before the show really got going.  The quiet, peaceful blues and grays.  

 I'm not done with those San Juan Islands.  If I can never physically return (which I so hope I do!), my many photos which will provide a vehicle to take me back!  

Take time to enjoy the handiwork of God around you today.  If you let it, it will inspire and bring some peace in this busy world. 

  

Hydrangeas and the Unpainted House

One of my sweetest childhood memories were the flower bushes that graced my Grandma Hall's humble unpainted house out by Bayou Bartholomew near Bastrop, Louisiana.  They rented the house and land, and raised cotton and soybeans.  My cousins who lived there also might want to put their 2 cents worth in at this point and further, but I know those were two of the crops.  

The picture of that house will forever be etched in my mind.  It had a front porch and a screen door which on a Sunday afternoon was forever slamming echoed by the certain "don't slam the door".  To the right of the open porch, if memory serves me well, was the hydrangea bush and a lantana, the old fashioned pink and orange variety.  (cousins, is this correct?) 

To my child's eye, it was just a flower in the yard, but as years have passed the beauty and magnificence of those blossoms have increased for me.  I love them!!  They are so hefty and colorful with lush foliage, their color determined by the kind of soil, acidic or alkaline.  Which makes which?  I think the blue is from alkaline, but I did not Google it.   My pitiful little one is a pinkie.  

Recently a college friend purchased a watercolor from me of Hollyhocks in front of an unpainted house (thank you, Facebook!)  She loved it and wanted another to hang with it.  I suggested Hydrangeas, and she liked the idea.  

Time sure does fly.  It seems like yesterday, in a way, and a millions years ago in another way, that door was slamming and us kids were having the time of our lives out at Grandpa's on a Sunday afternoon.  It's been said a million times, kids today do not know what they are missing, and I'll say it again, they do not.  Some of the best memories of my childhood!