Showing you Oregon,one post at a time. Did you know that I post the links of many of my stories and articles on the sidebar? When you have extra time, please scroll down to see more. At the bottom of this page there are links to many other blogs that I enjoy.

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Hello, friends, thank you so much for stopping by. I really hope that you will enjoy your visit to Oregon Gifts. Due to spam, I am not accepting comments from anonymous people. Please email me at: oregongiftsofcomfortandjoy@hotmail.com if you are unable to leave a comment on here. I write back through email when I can.

My words and photographs are copyrighted, and may not be used without permission, even on Pinterest.

~ Kathy M.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Sepia Saturday Posts #107, 108 and 109: Catching Up!


I have been away from Sepia Saturday for oh so long.  We had so much happen in December that I got behind, and then we went to Texas and I needed to get caught up on that stuff.  I've missed making my Sepia Saturday posts and visiting my Sepia Saturday friends.

This week, I am showing some slideshows that some of you may have already seen.  Slide.com is closing down in early March 2012, and I wanted to show them again while I still can.  I also wanted our family on Facebook another opportunity to view them.  The first two slide shows are of my husband Cary's family, and the last one is of my Dad and the Johnson side of my family. 

If you love old pictures and awesome stories, please "CLICK HERE" to see what my Sepia Saturday friends are up to this week!



"People and Their Pets"

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
This sweet baby is my husband Cary. The slideshow below is of him with his family.



"Ladies and Their Hats"

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
The photo above is of my husband Cary's Grandma Pearl Spillers Wright Ellis.  The slide show below is of the Spillers family in 1947.



"Little Blond Girls"

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Me and my Dad.  Believe it or not, this was my Easter Outfit for that year! 

Here is a story about me when I was little and about my doll, Sherry:  A Trip Down Memory Lane to Home, Sweet Home  


January 2009:  Last Sunday, on our way home from Corvallis, we drove through Sweet Home, Oregon. I lived in Sweet Home when I was 4 and 5.  I went to kindergarten there, at Oak Heights school. We lived in a house that was converted into a duplex, and my little friend next door was named Terri. My friend Monty lived with his parents and 4 brothers in the house next to us. I was living in Sweet Home when President Kennedy was shot. I remember that day very well, because when I got home from school, my Mom was watching the black and white t.v. and she was crying. It may have been the first time that I saw her cry ... she's very good about holding it all in. I felt a sense of doom, and, of course there was good reason for that.  

My Dad was the manager at the grocery store. My mom was a R.N. at the hospital in Lebanon. We weren't that far away from Harrisburg and Junction City, so Uncle Red, Aunt Vete, Shelly and Terry ... as well as Grandma and Grandpa Johnson and Grandma and Grandpa T. came to visit often. I had a world globe, which I was very proud of. One time Uncle Red brought his wild brother Tom with him, and Tom broke my globe.  I felt pretty bad about that one, but he grew up to be a minister and mended his wild ways. 

I learned to ride my bike at this house. I ran through the sprinkler in the summer with my brother wearing only my underpants. The older kids (probably 2nd or 3rd graders) made fun of me, and made me feel bad and ashamed because I didn't have a top on. Never again did I go outside without my top! 

The neighbor's dog, Sadie, died when somebody threw poisoned meat over the fence and she ate it. 

I lived in that house during the big flood.  My dad's store was flooded, but we lived up high enough not to have our little house effected. There were old, unused railroad tracks behind the house that we used to explore. 

I went to a sleepover at Monty's in the backyard when they had their tent up. I got up very early and went home because I was a little spooked. When the boys woke up they came over and made sure I was okay. They were nice boys. 

Here is a picture of my dad with a reverse Mohawk, my little bro, my baby sister and me, sitting on our porch.  I'm not quite sure what you would call Angie's hairstyle.  I think that the sun was in our eyes. 

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This is what the house looked like on that Sunday when Cary and I visited.  It doesn't really look that different, does it? Too bad all those cars are blocking the view. I hopped out of the car with my camera and a lady flung open the front door. I said, "I hope you don't mind, but I lived here when I was 5." Cary said, "Is this a duplex?" He still wasn't sure it was the right house. She nodded her head. I said, "Does it have an upstairs?"  She nodded again. I guess she thought we were legit, because she just turned around and closed the door.:

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews



This is what my old school looks like now.  It is called Oak Heights:






My best friend husband is 11 years older than me. He was a senior in high school when I was in kindergarten. We have a standing joke that he walked by my classroom one day, looked in the window, pointed to me and said: "I'm going to marry that little girl someday!"   This would have been the school where he found me and claimed dibs. It's funny how 11 years makes such a difference when you are young but not when you are old. 

I loved going to school. I remember walking up the long hill from school to home, by myself. Guess what? It is barely a slope, and certainly not a hill. Also, it is only about a half block away from my old house. On Halloween, we were dressing up at school. I wore my costume to school, because that is what we understood we were supposed to do. But, no. We were supposed to bring our costumes to school and put them on for the party. Once again, I was embarrassed. Oh well. 

I graduated from kindergarten at Oak Heights School.

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This is my doll Sherry. I got Sherry for my birthday when I was 5. I loved Sherry very much. So did my little brother. He was really a pretty easy going guy at the age of 2 1/2, but he would fight me for that doll. I had to hide her under my shirt just to avoid conflict. My mom and dad decided to buy him his own doll. It was a jester stuffed doll, and little bro named him Pinocchio. He loved Pinocchio so much that he eventually loved him to death. After a couple of years, Mom and Dad had to get another, similar jester doll that was subsequently named Pinocchio. I think he still has that one. We are kind of a sentimental bunch in our family.   

On our drive back home, I was telling my Cary all about my time living in Sweet Home and the above memories. I started feeling really bad about Sherry.  I built her a new body about 25 years ago, but currently she was just shoved in the toy box in the spare room. Yesterday, when I was at Bi-Mart, I found a cute doll with extra clothes and accessories on sale. I bought it, came home, dressed Sherry and put her in the cute little doll bed pictured above. I held her and kissed her, and felt really bad that she has been hanging out naked with her arm falling off in a dark toy box. Now she is all spiffed up, as you can see. I showed her to Cary and he said, "Do you still have her original clothes?" I said, "Heck no! She doesn't even have her original body!" Then he said, "What are you doing, holding and kissing that doll?" I said, "Trying to make up for 45 years of neglect." 

Welcome back, Sherry. Now I just need to go retrieve Tippy from the (clean) garbage can in the storage unit that holds all of the old stuffed animals.


~ Kathy M.


At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.
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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Book Blurb Friday #47: The Glory of True Love

Disclaimer on this post ... this story is not real, it is part of Book Blurb Friday where some of my blog friends and I join up each week with Lisa Ricard Claro, look at the photo that she posts, and then write a 150 word book blurb to entice people to buy a book off of what we write.  It is probably a touchy subject on what I wrote this week, but this is the story that came to mind.  To me, these people looked happy and in love, and they are surrounded by water, and that is how I came up with the following blurb. 


Check out Sioux' Page.

"The Glory of True Love"
by Kathy Matthews

Now that he had found his Liz, Frank Braxton has everything.   Since he had spotted her at church ten months ago, Liz rarely left his side.  When she had to go to work for the day, he used to call and tell her how he wished he could carry her around in his shirt pocket, so that she would always be with him.  The glory of true love was definitely a healing thing. 

The lovers are on their honeymoon.  Their family and friends have pitched in to buy them a special cruise trip to Italy. Neither Frank or Liz are very comfortable with the idea of being on the open ocean.  Everybody reassured them that of course nothing would ever happen, and that modern day ocean-liners were super safe.  Indeed, they were having a wonderful time.  Then disaster struck, and Frank is not about to let true love go. (150)

I found this John Prine song, The Glory of True Love, on YouTube:




Please join me in keeping those effected by the Italy sinking of the cruise ship lifted up in your prayers.  What a sad, sad thing.



I am participating in Lisa's Book Blurb Friday, from over at Writing in the Buff.   It is fun, and you can play too!  Pretend that the picture on the top of this post is the cover of a book.  On the inside jacket, you have 150 words to entice the reader to buy your book.  Lisa gives us a week to think about next week's entry (she's gracious like that).  Please CLICK HERE  to read what everybody else wrote!


At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Hello!

Hi Everybody,

Wow.  It takes so much time sorting through all of those photos, and then time to find the exact ones that I want to put into posts.  Thank you for your patience, I am sorry that I haven't gotten back on track yet.  I'll be by to visit and return emails soon, thanks for leaving your comments. 


We have a huge snow storm coming in today; and our roof isn't fixed yet.  Up to 18" of snow is predicted, with high winds.  AHHHH!  Panic in the gray room now.  Our house is still out of sorts waiting for repairs, and it is really bugging me.  Oh, well, there isn't a lot that I can do about it right now.

I'm going to do some errands and then come home and prepare for the possible loss of electricity.  At least if we lose power, I can put the freezer food in coolers on the back porch and hopefully they should be okay.  I'm getting all my cast iron camping pots and pans cleaned up too, just in case we need to use the BBQ for a stove.


I hope that you are all doing well, and thanks so much for stopping by to see what's up. 

Hugs,


Kathy M.

The River Walk Area of San Antonio, Texas:

Hello, Friends!

San Antonio, Texas was named after St. Anthony.

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

The River Walk is a city park in San Antonio.  I have had such a hard time choosing which photos to put on here of the River Walk itself.  I took so many! Some of the pictures turned out awesome, some not so good, especially the ones that I took at night.  I've decided to not try and go in chronological order on this post, so don't worry about things being shown in the daytime and then nighttime.   

I went on two boat tours, once with us girls (on Saturday night) and the other time with Cary during the day on Sunday. Later Sunday evening, Cary and I caught a river taxi which is the same  (you can buy a 24-hour pass) and had an off-the-beaten path tour of our own because we didn't get off when we were supposed to.  We learned a lot about San Antonio from the two captains that we had on that adventure. 


We were staying at the Grand Hyatt, which is next to the Convention Center, the star on the map on the bottom left hand side of the map.  The horseshoe part of the river is where the action is; full of walking paths, bridges and places to eat.  See that little star on the bottom right hand of the map above?  It says "Locks and Dam".  This the smallest locks in the United States, and here are some pictures that I took on our last night on the River Taxi.  The captains can adjust the water level of the river at the dam so that they can cross over it back and forth.  We met a woman captain and got on to her boat, as our first driver headed up toward the Pearl Brewery.  Just scroll over to better study the map.


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews



Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews



There was a short wait to get aboard the tour boat.  You buy your tickets near the River Center Mall; they cost between $6.00 and $8.50, and I feel that the tour was really worth the money.  The tours run from 9:00 a.m - 9:00 p.m.


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This the River Center Mall.  It has 1,000,000 square feet and has lots of stores, restaurants and a Macy's where I bought my new boots.  They have music playing outside, often live.  There is also a Hooters, where Cary kept taking the grandsons so that they could get their pictures taken with the nice ladies.


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews



Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Our tour boat captain was Doug.  That pretty lady is my step-daughter Cheri.  Cary and I ended up with Doug too, so I got to hear his spiel twice and most of it sunk in.


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

The gals are hamming it up and were having so much fun!  Kylie, Halie, Cheri, Bev, Jen and Susan are glad that we all got good spots to sit. I sat behind Susan, and we were at the back of the boat.  I was on a mission to take pictures.  There was a motorcycle group sitting next to me, and they were really nice folks.  One guy made sure that I got my answer to how they got all of those Christmas lights on the trees.  They used climbing ropes.


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


We were lucky that the river had water in it.  This is the first year that they didn't drain it during the week of the Army All-American Game for cleaning purposes.  This is what the river looked like when we were there two years ago: 


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


This year:


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


We were also lucky that they still had the Christmas lights plugged in, as it was the last weekend for that.  The colored lights made everything that much more magical.

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


There was so much to see from the vantage point of the boat!  Here are a few of the historical buildings seen from The River Walk:


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
The Mission Bells wall represents the four Spanish Missions that are located in the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, plus The Alamo.  In 1718, Representatives from Spain, along with Franciscan Monks, built their first mission in San Antonio.  Over the next thirteen years, there were five total.  To learn more about those who helped to settle San Antonio, please check out my friend Little Nell's (from Sepia Saturday) husband's blog, The Lanzarte They Left.

We didn't make it over to Mission Park.  There is so much to see and do in San Antonio, that we barely scratched the surface of the downtown area, let alone the rest of the area.  Maybe someday we will be able to go back and take tours, go to the historical museums, parks and experience more of San Antonio.  I hope!



Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

The Tower of the America's is the second tallest free standing building in the U.S., second only to The Stratosphere in Las Vegas.  You can ride an elevator to the observation deck on top to take a look around San Antonio.  It was built for the 1968 World's Fair, and is located in HemisFair Park, behind the Convention Center.  We ran out of time to go to the park, but here is a super link if you want to learn more about it: The Texas Explorer.com: HemisFair Park.


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

St. Joseph's Church still holds services in German.  Please scroll over to read more about it in the photo of the plaque below.




The Courthouse made for some pretty pictures:


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
There are so many bars and restaurants along the River Walk.  I'll be highlighting some with reviews and stories, but here are just a few of them:

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

The Lone Star.  We were not treated well at this joint.  I'll talk about it later.

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
The Original Mexican Restaurant.  Our group ate there the night before we arrived, and they were not too happy with it either.  I'm thinking that if you are in a large group, you have less chance of good service.  They all add on a 20% guaranteed tip, regardless.


One of our boat captains mentioned that the owners of this restaurant were the ones to think of beginning the water taxi and tours in the 1980's.  Great idea, you guys!



Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
These guys were taking our picture as we were on the boat, so I took theirs.  That guy is cracking up at me.  I love this picture!

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This place was really neat.  We just had a drink, but the atmosphere was great and the bartenders were nice.


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
More about the River Walk Itself:


The River Walk is one story below street level.  This means that you can get to most of the shops and restaurants by car or walking down the sidewalk, or you can walk along the San Antonio River and get there that way.  The river is spring fed, and I think that I learned that it surfaces around The Witte Museum.  The river is a real river, and in the shallow parts of the downtown area, it is only between two and five feet.  The main stretch of the river is about 15' deep.  There are waterfalls that circulate the water for oxygen, and this is also a way to keep the spring water as San Antonio's source of drinking water.


 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews
The River Walk is essentially a much needed form of flood control.  There are gates that come down from some of the bridges, and ramps that flip up from the bottom of the canal to block the water during times of heavy rain.  Before this system was developed by Mr. Hugman in the late 1920's and implemented by the city beginning in 1939, flooding was an unfortunate and expensive hazard of doing business downtown.  Over time, the hotels, bars, restaurants, shops and theaters have located in the coveted riverside area.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This building was named after the man who designed the canal, Mr. Hugman.  He moved his business there to show that he believed that the flood control would work, and others soon followed.

And finally, the city was working on widening a sidewalk, and I loved how they got the Bobcat up and down to the river:


 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews


There is so much more to tell, but I'll break down the rest into separate stories.  Lots of ghostly vapors and faces showed up in my photos, so stay tuned for those.  There will be reviews on where we ate, where we stayed and much, much more over time.  I need to stop now, because I am afraid that this 5 hour post will crash on me if I don't.

~ Kathy M.

Links:





At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.
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I LOVE THE STATE OF OREGON.

I LOVE THE STATE OF OREGON.
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