I tripped over a memory the other night. Truth be told, I didn't trip over a memory; I tripped over a rug that opened up an entire train of thought that took me back almost 50 years.

My mind wandered back to the winter that we lived in Indiana.

It was a time of building ties and making memories with cousins and grandparents. Yes, we all looked like that not quite half a century ago.

We had sleepovers and family dinners. We made fudge and donuts. We devored the fish that grandpa caught and grandma fried... after grandpa's lesson on how to de-bone a fish. We played in the snow and the grass and we all attended the same country church that had been the family's church for years.

But the memory I tripped over centered on rags and an old treadle sewing machine. The sewing machine that sits in my home now but never gets used.

Our familes got together several afternoons to cut and sew rug rags. After the rags were cut into strips, someone older than me would sew the rags together end-to-end and then the strips were wound into balls.

I have no idea how many hours were spent in cutting and sewing rags, but I do remember that when they were all done, they were delivered to a family friend who had a loom used for weaving the rags into rugs. I also know that there must have been a huge pile of them because I still have at least one of those rugs. Mom has gone over the rugs with me telling me the story behind the rags. There was an old snow suit and someone's coat. I'm pretty sure there were some jeans in the stack as well.

When you enter our house, you will find that old treadle sewing machine sitting in the entryway. What used to be a useful piece of equipment is now a conversation piece that's part of the decor.

I never did get to use that machine when it sat in Grandma's house, but the other night I got it out and tried to make it go. I decided it needed to be oiled and cleaned, something that Grandpa would have been good at, because it was hard to get going. I sat and studied it and couldn't quite figure out how to thread it up, but mostly I just sat and remembered times when memories could be built with a pile of rags and an old sewing machine.

About this time last year, we began the process of preparing our home for sale in anticipation of selling it and buying a new home. We mended and patched, sawed and hammered, painted and stained, trimmed and dug, and patched and painted some more...all summer long. When the skies were clear, we worked outside and when we had rain, we worked inside. After dozens of trips to Lowes and visits from multiple contractors, we were still painting and patching.

When we felt like we were finally ready to put our home on the market, we sorted and cleared and cleaned some more. We found a realtor that we were very happy with and on her first visit, we contracted her to sell our home. She had a few small suggestions, and we went back to Lowes for potted plants and a couple of shrubs.

As we waited for someone to fall in love with our home, we began looking for another home. We did most of our searching on-line and drove past a couple. As more and more people looked at our home, we continued to look and began to notice that the list of houses that we were considering was shrinking. After six months of praying for the perfect home, we began to wonder if we would have to settle for something less than what we wanted. We kept praying though and finally a buyer placed a contract on our house.

The next day, the boys and I met with our realtor and looked at three houses. After the first one, we were discouraged. The price was right and the location was fine, but it would take another year of mending and patching, and painting and scrubbing. We kept praying and looking and after a second trip out with the realtor, she had a very good idea of what we needed. One morning I noticed a new home in the listings and showed it to Dean and we both felt it was an option. We made arrangements to see it the same day without even reading through all the details of the listing.

When we walked into the house, we immediately felt that it could be our new home, but it wasn't until we walked into the backyard that we noticed something we had missed in the details. There was a pool in the backyard! A pool? That hadn't even occured to any of us as a possiblity. We had thought that it would be nice to have a garage or a basement or even a fireplace, but a pool was far from our minds.

Well, we had been praying for the perfect place and it seemed that this was the home the Lord had led us too, so we made an offer. Soon we were in the middle of providing all kinds of information to lenders, getting inspections done and making trips to the courthouse looking for information and the pool faded from our minds.

When we moved in in January the pool was covered and remained covered for almost four months. We had no idea what we would find when we uncovered it. It didn't look that great when we took our first look, but the pump and filter were working so we set to work. We researched and swept, and researched and vacuumed and researched and filtered and researched and added chemicals. When we finally had it ready, we were all eager to jump in. It is so nice to be able to walk into the backyard and into the pool.

We are enjoying our new home and we're still finding ways to appreciate it even more. The Lord blessed us with a home that is perfect for us and even gave us an extra that we hadn't prayed for.

Jeremy and Justin hadn't reached their second birthday when we went to the library for the first time. At that time the library was in temporary housing as the building was going through a remodel. Our stack of books wasn't real tall, but the boys soon learned that we would sit down in the afternoon and read. We would read the books over and over before going back for another stack. By the time they reached their third birthday, they were well-known by the library staff and for their forth birthday they got library cards and library bags.

Soon after their forth birthday, we moved to Virginia and one of the first outings was to the library. By this time, we were filling a couple of canvas bags on each visit and the librarians would chat with them each time we visited. The boys hadn't learned to read, but they had learned to listen to longer books and we found favorite authors. We continued to check out fifty or more books at a time and one more than one occasion, I read until I was hoarse. When school began we chose a literature rich curriculum, but we added at least one library book to every day.

Our reading schedule has changed over the years, but I still read to the boys almost every day. JJ always gets his reading time right before bed and he knows if he gets his teeth brushed before a certain time, he will get to hear more than one chapter. His favorites right now are the "Hank the Cowdog" books and I have to admit that I get a kick out of them as well. This week, we started a new book and he talked me into reading three chapters at a time.

Over the last year, I've been reading the "Little Britches" series by Ralph Moody to all three boys right after breakfast. Since the older boys have been studying 20th Century History this year, the series fit right in and has given them a view into life on the plains in the early part of the century. One more than one occasion, they've asked for another chapter after lunch and occasionally, I've given in.

A couple of months ago, one of the librarians, called me and asked if we would give our permission to have the boys on the front cover of the library's magazine. Someone remembered all those bags of books that we have checked out over the years, and thought they would be good models for the summer issue. As a follow up to that request, another librarian called and asked if they would be willing to be featured on the website along with a list of books that they recommended. They have been experiencing a measure of fame as multiple friends have visited the library and found a familiar face on the magazine and I know of one person who purchased a copy of one of the books they recommended.

We've come to the end of the "Little Britches" series and I've been debating about what to read over the summer. I've been pulling out some books that I've enjoyed over the years and sharing them with the boys. No matter what books or series we choose for the summer, I'm going to predict that I'll hear "Just one more chapter" more than once during the summer.