Here are some pictures of my finished kitchen counters. We used a marble called Amazon Rain Forest Gold. We also used stacked rock on the posts and used a combination of glass, travertine, and marble on the edges. We also bought a large farm sink of travertine.
Everything is done, except around the front of the sink. There is still a big gap from the cabinet we had to remove. I bought some tile with a pinwheel design to go directly under the sink and some wood trim to go on the sides.
The big huge sink is perfect for us. With all the cooking and canning I do, all the large pans I use, it is really amazing that I have room and the pans actually fit into the sink. When I walk by the counters, I can’t help it, but I keep rubbing my hand on the counters. I still can’t believe I have real counters that just have to be wiped and they clean so easily. After all those months of plywood counters…marble is amazing!
For Labor Day weekend, we drove to Houston late Thursday night. We didn’t get there until about 2:30 in the morning. Then we got up and made it to the beach around 8 am. Since it was Friday, and a school day, no one was at the beach. It was in the mid 80’s and there was a soft breeze, partly cloudy.
You could not have asked for a better day at the beach. We set up the chairs, the beach umbrellas and we had the perfect day. Maria was there with Xander and Greyson. Douglas was there with Celeste and Isabella. So all my grandbabies were on the beach with grandma. Heaven. Their spouses had to work, so we missed them, as well as other missing siblings.
Only Rebeca and Elizabeth came to Houston with us. Felipe drove for Maria, but then she dropped him off near Dallas so he could spend the weekend with friends. Davis had volunteered to stay at home to take care of my mom.
We made sandcastles, dug in the sand, played in the waves, just sat in the waves, fed the sea gulls, and Papa Fito and Douglas pulled Celeste on a wave board. She would fall, but then would immediately get back on and want more…and faster!
(The above pic was drawn by Celeste before we came down to Houston...it is titled: Grandma Tammy on the Beach) It's perfect! I am going to have it framed!
Maria and Greyson.
This was such a funny moment. Xander and Isabella both wanted to hold Douglas's hand, but had gotten twisted up and were facing the wrong direction. He finally got them all straightened out.
Daddy working hard to please his daughters.
There is just something about the beach, the waves, and the ocean. Putting your toes in the squiggly sand that has the pulse of the ocean vibrating through your soul. You feel as though Mother Earth is communicating peace, tranquility, and joy to you.
I grew up in Colorado with the mountains believing that they were how to really commune with God. A mountain meadow filled with the first flowers of spring, throwing snowballs in August on the side of a glacier, catching the perfect Rainbow Trout and then cooking it over an evening campfire, sleeping in a tent, listening to the gurgling of a mountain stream, while inhaling the clean pine scent of the mountains. Heaven.
Although, after being introduced to the ocean, I am not sure which is more heavenly? I do not believe you can choose. There are pieces of heaven all over the earth. In many forms, in many places.
The open wide skies of the west where a rolling thunderstorm becomes the canvas, or a sunrise, or the celestial starry night far away from city lights. The amazing rock formations of the southwest, the tall forests in California, the old misty woods in the Appalachia. The Finger Lakes of upper state New York. The swaying Palms and white beaches of Florida and Mexico.
I shouldn’t even start listing places because it would take pages and pages to mention all the beautiful places I’ve been and I have only been in 32 states and Canada and Mexico. But each place had its own beauty. Its own piece of heaven.
A dream of mine is to someday visit all the states, then many places around the world. There are so many countries I want to visit, so many cultures and people I want to experience. This world is so beautiful. We forget sometimes when we are caught up in the business and worries of our lives.
Take a few minutes today and see the beauty. A bird chirping in a tree, a flower blooming through the crack of a sidewalk, a puffy cloud that says hi, a rain storm that cleans the earth. Enjoy it. Thank God for it, and may each one of you be blessed with more beauty in your daily lives is my prayer.
At the mall in Houston with our grandbabies. Fun!
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