My life is complete.

And I'm in good company. Hi, @seedsower and @Grannys_Place.

I wouldn't buy business card's from this guy, either. Nor get tattoo's from his brother.

I mentioned the stacked bowls @sandraerickson sent me, but I didn't have a picture uploaded. This is what they look like.

And when Aloysius_Son was cleaning out his files, he sent me this whimsical cartoon. It says something like, "I'm a numbers guy."

I bought a lovely old tiger-oak desk the other day from a Craigslist ad. When I installed it in my study at home, Alicia pointed out that the finish was considerably darker than the shade we had in mind for our furniture. I sighed (silently), took it back apart (it consists of a thick top and two drawer cabinets), and dragged it out to the shop. A day or two later I bought paint stripper, thick rubber gloves, and green scrubbies at Home Depot. 

Last night I spread a big plastic dropcloth, set a piece of the desk on it, and began slathering on the paint stripper with an old paintbrush. The instructions said to scrape after fifteen minutes. The product bubbled within three minutes, and at fifteen minutes was so dry that I had to slather more stripper on it to get it off at all. I worked my way around the piece three times, slathering and scraping. I got nearly all the varnish off that way, but there were streaks of stain that I couldn't scrape off. I ended up scouring the wood with a green scrubby dipped in stripper, my fourth time around.

At one point Alicia called me, and I had to take off a glove to answer. Then I was stuck with the dilemma of how to get a dirty inside-out glove back on with one hand. I worked left-handed for a while, then gave up. I went to the sink, washed my left glove, and then turned the right one right-side out, washed it, and put it back on.

(My shop has a sink! How cool is that?!)

The last step was to scrub the wood with a fresh scrubby dipped in paint thinner. I slopped the thinner on generously and scoured until there was no more residue of stripper or varnish scum. 

The wood still looked a bit dark. I'll take another look at it tonight to see how it looks dry. If need be I'll give it a light sanding before I start refinishing.

Two more big pieces to go, plus drawers and several smaller pieces.

Sigh... If I had remembered how much hassle refinishing was, I would have held out for a light-colored desk.

The last of the Jones quints, Seth, got to go home from the hospital the other day. I can't imagine what it was like for him to be with his siblings after being in isolation so many months. He's the big guy with the cannula. 

Today my dad would be 85. 

His parents were German immigrants. His dad, an alcoholic, worked in the Akron tire factories, and died before I was born. His mom became mentally ill when Dad was a child, and spent the rest of her life in and out of institutions. I met her when I was six, at a hospital in Ohio. She died a few years later while we were in Colombia.

With so much turmoil in his family of origin, one of Dad's ambitions was to establish a warm, healthy family. After he met the Lord, he wanted to be a missionary. In college he met my mom, who had similar values, and they married and began reproducing. Five kids later, they went to the Andean city of Pasto, Colombia, where they adopted a sixth, my brother Dan. We moved to the jungle town of Puerto Asís, then later to Medellín, Colombia's second-largest city. Two more sisters were adopted while I was in college.

Dad had an incredibly productive career, establishing and pastoring churches, teaching and counseling at the Universidad de Antioquia, speaking at retreats and conferences, writing books (textbooks, family counseling, missionary research), recording radio programs, an orphanage and a lunch program, building cabinets (carpentry was one of his hobbies), and more activities than I can remember. After retiring to the US in 1994, he continued to write and speak and teach until his death in 2010.

His genes live on. This is my daughter Hannah, next to her Papa Paul.

 (You can see a sequence of family pictures here.)

The Jones quints, born in Dallas last fall, are grandchildren of a friend who taught at the high school I attended in Colombia. 

I don't know the girl pushing the stroller, but Lynee, the lady on the right (if you can see the whole photo), was in high school with me.

You can track the quints' progress at the Jones family blog. Four are doing well at home. Seth is still dealing with respiratory and digestive problems. Hence the empty seat at the rear of the stroller.

Quote from the blog: "We ordered the Runabout stroller from Roger Berg at www.bergdesign.net via email and phone. He and his crew will make strollers to hold as many or as few babies as you want."

A couple of years ago, I copy-edited this book for @sandraerickson. She sent me a copy and also a set of nested bowls she had made. Unfortunately I haven't uploaded a photo of the bowls yet.


Jeff @doahsdeer sent me this book when I made a donation to his favorite hospital. I also have A Minor Case of Murder in the Kindle version, purchased through Amazon.


I bought this amazing photo from @plantinthewindow's photography site.


This copy of @plantinthewindow's latest book of poetry came a couple of weeks ago. The cover art is by @oceanstarr. I took this photo with insufficient light so it's out of focus. I also have John's first book but can't find the photo I uploaded.


One of my very favorite wedding presents was this recent painting by @oceanstarr, to which a number of you contributed. Thank you!


I bought this blissfully peaceful painting a couple of years ago from @oceanstarr. 

Got a jar of delicious relish from @seedsower a couple of years ago. Sorry, no photo uploaded.

Oh, yeah, a weird cartoon from @aloysius_son. Haven't uploaded that either.

I also have a cute little tape measure that @heart-beep sent a few birthdays ago. No photo, sorry.

What have you got?

I had the singular privilege this week of meeting two of my favorite Xangans. Last Monday it was Beth @Seedsower, and today it was Zakiah @ZSA_MD. She is as delightful in real life as in her blog.

Her friends have a gorgeous home just over an hour from our house. Zakiah was there with her husband and niece. We got to see photos of Andrew, whom she calls Prince #3. The others are Daniel and Noah. Alicia said that they are princes because they are grandsons of a queen.

You can see her niece in the background of this shot. We plan to visit her in Orlando soon.

Her hosts were classmates from the small medical school she attended in India, and some of the guests were also. This guy she hadn't seen since 1966.

The hostess, Sumathi, gave us a lovely set of candleholders when she learned that we were newlyweds. She also served us wonderful desserts. It was Alicia's first time to try tapioca pudding, which she really enjoyed. Zakiah gave us a calla lily, our first plant. Alicia looks forward to planting it in our garden come spring.

The house has fruit trees and gorgeous flowers. This lush poinsettia made me think of Beth's annual pre-Christmas show.

I had never seen a jasmine tree before. I would have guessed it was a lemon or lime tree. No, wait, this is the lime tree. Sumathi said they had gotten over 400 limes from it in the past year.

This flower grows in a container. They've had it for 11 years now.

It was a most pleasant afternoon. For me the best part was to see the affinity Alicia felt with Dr. Z. She told me later that it was like they were from the same village of the soul. (Hard to do the expression justice in a translation.)

I would have enjoyed more time, but they needed to get back to Orlando before dark. We definitely look forward to seeing them again, even if it means driving way out of our way to go through Quincy on a trip to Dallas or Arkansas.

Anyone who has been in my house or seen my cubicle knows that organization and tidiness do not come naturally to me.

But check out my closet. This is my sock and underwear shelf. Everything neatly folded or rolled and sorted by color and style.

I actually have two closets. In the other one are my shirts, pants, and jackets, one inch apart, sorted by color and style. Look at that! Jeans on hangers! T-shirts on hangers!

(That shoe rack has got to go.)

There's nothing like a woman's touch.