VACATION

Well, The Husband and I have returned from our annual vacation.  Well, annual some years.  Luckily, this was one of those annual years.  We were gone for a week...actually eight days with two of them being travel days.  We flew in and out of Great Falls, Montana....flying in via Salt Lake City (and a run literally from one gate of arrival to another of departure--whew) and flying out via Minneapolis/St. Paul (with time for a Burger King lunch in between).

This country of ours has many beautiful sights.  The sights we saw were without a doubt "God made" rather than the bright lights of "man-made".  Before heading out, we visited the local Walmart to purchase our traditional vacation snacks.  One must prioritize...

We headed out bright and early on our first morning there in route to Glacier National Park.  Yes, we left the hotel before daylight and the only good thing about that was that I was able to capture this Montana sunrise.

 There were wildfires in Idaho and the wind was blowing so the mountains and sky were not as clear as we would have hoped but beautiful all the same.

Glacier National Park was beautiful, too, and we drove 18 miles to Logan Pass on "The Road to the Sun".  We would have driven straight across to the opposite side but the road was only open 18 miles worth so we had to turn around and come back.   At Logan Pass, we saw these sights:

Yes, the photo with the two wood "poles" show that they are ready for snow.  They put the poles so the snowplows will know where to come to scrap the roads when the time comes.  I can't imagine that much snow.

We then drove around the south edge of the park to the west entrance and drove the 12 miles into the park on the 12 miles of road that was open.  Then we turned around and came back.  West Glacier was a whole different landscape.  It was flat-ter with lots of water.

 The Husband really enjoys looking for "game".  He spent a lot of time like this:

 And he was rewarded for his efforts....

There were warning signs...

The large "bull" elk with his harem were over this hill.  I did forget my fear for The Husband and spent a slight bit of time coveting the nice lens on the other guy's camera.  Maybe The Husband was there to take a closer look at the lens and not the elk?  Yeah. Right.

 We even saw a moose, even though it was a dead moose, we stopped, gave thanks it was not our rented car that hit it, and took a picture.  The husband enjoyed taking a much closer look than I did.

The flat ranch areas were mostly "open range".  I soon found out that meant that one tags their cows and just turn them loose outside the fences to gather and socialize.  Amazing.  Just in the road.  Standing in the road.

And then the ranchers "round 'em up" just like in the movies....

There were classic barns...

...ghost towns (Virginia City--wasn't that the Cartwright's hometown?)...

...fall leaves......

....and beautiful scenery.

We ate lunch one day at Wisdom, Montana.  Population:  100....

....and reminisced about a prior trip when we stayed in the hotel in Cooke City that Frommer's called "the poshest in town"....

I lost my desire to ride in a hot air balloon by traveling the road through Beartooth Pass.  It should have been named "Fear Highway".  You can see the road just curves around the side of the mountains and there are no trees.  It was SCARY.  I have decided I don't care for heights.

I was sooo happy to see this:

I always love the artistic photos....

...and the turkeys and birds.

One of my very favorites (yes there was a deer in the distance)....

And yes, two of us went on the trip...

So that's it in a nutshell....see you next time....

UPDATE

Well, no definition coming for "update".  This is simply an FYI to tell my now 8 or 9 regular blog readers that I have not fallen off the face of the earth....just been on, uh as they say about sitcoms, hiatus for a while.  With a floor repair and a vacation behind me now, I have a lot of photos to share and plan to do that before the week is over.  I hope to squeeze in writing time between my doctor's appointments, Bible study, work, and choir practice this week.  So more to come.........just not tonight.

HABITS

I’ve been up this morning for over an hour now.  Yes, I have been getting up at 5:30 a.m. rather than 4:30 a.m. for the past couple of weeks.  It has made a huge difference in how my body handles the whole day.  I needed that extra hour.  Thankful am I for little things like an extra hour of sleep.

Habit.  My online google dictionary defines “habit” as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up”.

My mind began to think on this on this particular morning as my floor repair began yesterday.  The damaged floor areas have been torn up.  Thankfully, there was no damage to the underfloor (or do that call that a subfloor?) .  Good news.  The hardwood could not be reset yesterday, though, because the floor area was so wet underneath.  So since then I’ve listened to three very loud fans in my kitchen running 24 hours.  It’s a noise, let me tell you , but a small price to pay for a job done right.  And there’s something to be said for a job done right…but not in this post.  I will listen to these fans until the floor technician returns tomorrow.   Taking my Pollyanna approach, I can be glad that these fans cool my kitchen more than just the regular air.  That’s nice.

So at our house, I prepare a cooked breakfast 99% of the time.  Not very smart, I know that.  But it’s my routine…or habit, you might say.   For a few years now, it’s been pancakes on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.  Biscuits, gravy and eggs on Wednesday, and Saturday and whatever I make on Monday and Friday.  And since this is Wednesday, I made biscuits.  Just in case you are wondering, my biscuits look like this:

And lest you think I made these this morning, I did not.  I do NOT make this many for The Husband. These were from another day.

I didn’t mention earlier that to prepare for the floor repair, the refrigerator that caused the problem to begin with had to be moved to the carport.  Luckily, my carport is right off my kitchen.  I went out to the carport this morning to get the buttermilk.   Then I went to put it back and get the sausage.  The sausage went back and I got the eggs.  Oh, and I had to go back for the butter.  And then the milk.   Oh, and did I mention the sandwich meat and mustard?  And the ice?  And the tea for The Husband’s lunch?   It was a never-ending trek back and forth and back and forth to the carport.  I was exhausted and said “Arrghh” more than once or twice.  The funny thing that made me think of a habit is that even after all these trips back and forth to the carport, when I got done with the mustard for the last time, I STILL walked to where the refrigerator used to be in the kitchen to put it away.    I know!  Isn’t the human mind complex?

So I considered my habits.  Habits are like everything else.  There are good ones and bad ones.   I’m not even going to classify habits as we were taught to classify blood sugar readings.  Habits are not classified as not normal or normal.  They are good or they are bad, with a few in between. 

From childhood to now, I was  (and still am) a horrible nail biter.  I never was able to have a manicure until a few years ago because I didn't have enough nail to file.  I had tried painting my nails with that nasty tasting stuff but you know what?  My habit of biting my nails was so strong in me that I still bit my nails.  Ridiculous.  Through the years I have tried harder to master this habit and have improved.  I tried to think of ways to avoid doing it especially during stressful times.   I finally decided that when I began to bite my nails, I would get a pair of clippers and just cut them off.  So that’s what I do.  Once they’re cut, there’s nothing to bite.  So now I know you will all look at my nails.  And you will see closely clipped nails.  And that’s why.  The best solution?  Maybe not.  But it works.   I used to twirl my hair but had a remedy for that when I had it cut short. 

I like to think that I and others have good habits, too.  Maybe cooking breakfast EVERY morning is not so good a habit to me, but it’s one that The Husband enjoys.  Exercise is a wonderful habit that I have slacked on of late.  Eating right is good, too, but on down the totem pole.   Watching certain TV shows—not many—just a few….Chopped, Masterchef, Hallmark channel…is a habit.  I even sometimes classify going to Sunday School, worship service, and choir practice as a habit.  This, however, is a habit I never want to break.  It’s a habit that I look forward to every week and never want to miss.  Lying in bed sleeping late on a Sunday morning just don’t cut it in my world.  I HAVE to have that worship and time with the Lord and my church family. 

I once heard that if one does something for a month, it becomes a habit.  I’ve never counted days or noted that to know if it is true or not.  Sounds like a good plan.  I think that the bottom line is that habits are what we make them, just as life is what we make it.   We must adapt and do the best we can with what we’ve got.  I guess if I look around as I sit here at the computer in my kitchen that is in disarray, I can look beyond that and see the finished result when it’s done and look forward to that.    I have decided I want to work on my habits and try to get rid of the bad ones and hold tightly to the good ones.  No one can do that for me.  I’m the only one who can make that happen. 

“Let love be without dissimulation.  Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”   
                                   Romans  12:9

DELIGHT

Delight:  “great pleasure”

I’ve noticed when watching old sitcoms that the words “delighted” and “delightful” are used a good bit in their conversations.  Mothers such as Beaver’s mother and Cathy Anderson’s mother use it frequently.  I don’t.  However, some days I wish I could be tidy like June Cleaver and Cathy Anderson’s mother but I'm delighted most days to just hang around the house in my comfort clothes. 

Back before The Girl got married, our refrigerator sprung a leak.  We noticed a slight buckling of the hardwood floor in the kitchen and, after investigation, found the leak.  Then right before revival a couple of months later, the floor between my sink and island began to really rise up.  In a VERY short time, it looked like this:

It was like walking over a mountain. The Husband began to look for another leak.  Surely it couldn't be coming from the refrigerator again but he decided to look there first as it would be the easiest fix.   Well, lo and behold, it was the refrigerator.  Again.  A whole different problem this time.  We had the frig repaired and decided to wait and see if the floor would go back down to it’s original shape.  It didn’t.  It was to the point that it was a real problem so I came up with a temporary solution that looked like this:

Am I clever or what?  It worked for me.  Eventually though when we were assured the boards were not going down, we did research and decided to make a homeowner’s claim.  The adjuster came last week.  She began to snap photos as soon as she came up the walk – not of my kitchen floor but of this in my front yard:

Talk about delight!  These deer have been coming in my yard for a long time on a regular basis and almost have a pet-like quality.  Yes, I love them.   I love them almost as much as I love the birds.  Not quite but almost.  And we all know how much The Husband loves looking at deer.  Deer are a DELIGHT for him in it’s finest form.   Oh and in case you are wondering, my first experience with an insurance homeowners adjuster turned out to be a good one.  Of course, how good is yet to be determined pending communication yet to come.  But I am encouraged.

On that day, I kept a watch out the storm door while the adjuster did her work in the kitchen.  Then I noticed that another mother and baby deer had come into the yard to visit with the first ones.  Those little spotted deer were running around on their little skinny legs playing with each other with no worries or fears.   It was a total DELIGHT to me.  I can’t begin to tell you how my face smiled and my heart felt such joy.  They were like children playing in the yard playing tag. I laughed with utter delight and found it hard to take my eyes away from the scene.

As in so many of my experiences of late, I am reminded that the Lord wants me as a child of His to be happy and joyful in the life that I have.  And I know that that life can only be truly fulfilled if I am in His will.   I am reminded by those little deer that God in his infinite wisdom and knowledge created all things and instilled in them what they needed to live the life that He intended.  I am reminded that many times I fail in doing what He intended for me, often through my busyness of my days or the fatigue of my body.  I need to spend more time with Him and allow Him to delight me through his wisdom and Word. 

I’ll close today with one of my favorite scriptures:

“Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

Psalm 37:4

Amen.

PRIDE

Pride goeth before a fall.  Or as the Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”.    Sounds painful. 

My trusted dictionary defines “pride” as “a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired”.   My trusted Bible dictionary defines pride as “a conceited sense of one’s superiority”.   Now when it is put like that, pride doesn’t sound so good, does it? 

With all that in mind, I think we can all truthfully say that we have experienced pride one or multiple times in our lives.  In my 56.9 years it would be impossible to count the times I have experienced pride.  And pride can be a wonderful thing to experience in some forms but in others, not so much. 

I am always reminded of the teachings in the early time of the diabetes diagnosis.  Everyone teaching how to live with diabetes always tried so hard to teach the patient and family to be positive.  The thing I remember most (and still try to adhere to on occasion) is that you are never to call blood sugars “good” or “bad”.  You are to use the word “normal” or “not normal”.  Well, be as it may some days we are still in the “good” and “bad” mode, no matter what you call it or how you look at it.  So I wonder if one could say there is “good” pride and “bad” pride?    

Since I ended one of my last posts with a promise of a pride story, I decided to follow through.  When I was a young girl sooooo many years ago, I was one of the quiet ones.  Unbelievable now, huh?   I stayed a bit on the shy side, did very little that got me in trouble, and always obeyed my parents.  Well, almost always.  Lest I have implied perfection on my part, let me say there were a few times I had to be reprimanded.  But not many. 

The time I want to relate to is a time when I was in the 7^th grade.  When I went to school (Man, that sounds like I’m a real Senior adult telling a “remember when” story.), girls always wore dresses.  It was unheard of to wear pants or shorts to school.  It would get you in trouble.  Most of my dresses were handmade by my mama and my mema.   One of my favorite dresses was a two piece cotton—well most everything was cotton—that had brown, rust, and maybe green checks.  It was a skirt that was plain but that top was not plain.  It buttoned all the way down the back, had short sleeves, and had a scalloped bottom.  A scalloped bottom.  Beautiful.  I wore knee socks with it.   I was too young in 7^th grade to wear nylons as they called them then.   

Even though life was fashioned so differently then and even though I was shy, I still was like any other girl.  When a new fashion item hit the world, I shyly would wonder what it was like to have it.  The big thing at my school amongst the girls were these shoes that looked liked the white and black saddle oxfords.  The difference in these shoes is that they were two-toned tan/brown suede.  Not only that--there was a fringy looking flap that flipped over the eyelets and shoestrings to hide them.  Oh.  They were fantastic shoes.  And I wanted some.  Bad.

My family’s shopping venue was Kmart down across from the Big Chicken.  Back then it was the closest big department store around.  You could get everything there except groceries.  When we would go, it would be on a Friday night.  So this certain Friday night, my mama and daddy told me I could have some of those shoes.   Oh, imagine my excitement!  I dressed in my favorite two piece brown/rust/green two piece dress along with my knee socks.  I wanted everything to match perfectly.   We headed to Kmart.  I got my shoes and was so excited. 

After we had shopped we were going to the McDonalds on down the street.  Now back then McDonalds were few and far between.  They were “new” to the world.  This particular one was an original with those big yellow arches running from one side of the building to the other.   Oh, it was a fantastic place!  When it was dark as it was then, the lights from those golden arches lit up the world.  At this McDonalds, dine in had not appeared yet.  Fast food was just beginning .   If you "dined in", you ate in your car.  People didn't mind eating in their cars back then.  They were just glad to go out to McDonalds on a Friday night.  Or at least my family was.  So on this particular night, my daddy went in to get our food.   There was always a long line at McDonalds.    I wanted to put on my new shoes and my mama said okay.  I put them on and just gazed at them.  Ah...beauty.   Man I looked good!  Didn’t matter that my skirt hem almost reached the top of my knee socks.  I had on my new shoes….smooth, beautiful suede with a flap so the eyelets and ties didn’t show.  It didn’t get any better. 

So of course, when one wants to show something off, they have to go amongst people to do that usually.  I asked could I go in and wait with my daddy and mother said yes.  I opened the car door to get out.  It had just begun to rain a bit.  I stepped up the step and bebopped happily toward the door....sure that everyone in every car was admiring my new shoes and how great I looked in them. Oh, did I say that my new shoes had new rubber soles?  Uh huh.  They did.  And when my new rubber sole hit that wet slick cement just right and slipped right before I got to the door, my body went down.  My feet in my new tan/brown suede shoes sailed right thru that McDonalds glass door and I lay there on the floor in my beautiful two piece plaid skirt and scalloped edged shirt.  Oh, and my new shoes were toes up on my feet like that wicked witch’s red shoes sticking out from under the fallen house in The Wizard of Oz.  You all know the scene I mean and can picture it right now.  I lay there with broken glass all around.  Oh, I wanted the floor to just suck me under it.  I remember looking up and seeing my daddy as he stood in line look around and look down.  Shock.  Oh.  Sorrow.  Embarrassment.  He quickly helped me up and got me to the car.  Unhurt actually even with all that glass around.  The door was in ruins.  So was my pride.   

The manager was very nice and deemed it a circumstance beyond my control so my daddy didn’t have to pay for that door.  I can’t remember what happened to our supper of hamburgers and French fries.  I was too busy drowning in embarrassment and hurt pride.  My demeanor all the way home was certainly not one of excitement and the joy of those shoes dimmed a bit.  It was a time in my life that I NEVER forgot. 

I imagine not many folks have ever slid through a McDonalds’ glass door.  Hopefully you never will either but if you do, I hope you are wearing exceptionally beautiful shoes.  

FLOWERS

Flowers.  You might see them growing in a yard.  You might see them in a floral shop or grocery store floral department. Flowers might be seen in a hospital room where they have been sent to cheer one who is sick or in a funeral home where folks are sad.  Or at a wedding celebration of joy.  So many places that flowers bring beauty.

No matter where they are, it takes the rain and the sunshine to make flowers grow from little tiny seeds.  The most beautiful of flowers they are and are grown by God's own hand.

I love taking photos of flowers, in case you didn't know.  So I decided to share some of my favorites with you faithful blog readers.  Enjoy....

Remember, friends are the flowers in the garden of life.  Thank you all for being mine!

GOOD DEEDS

No good deed goes unpunished.

We’ve all been there.  Right? 

For years, this has been a regular saying between my good buddy and me.  And for years, I thought how unfair that was.  And for years, she and I have proven the fact to be true.  When I first heard it, I thought “Really?”  That doesn’t sound right.  

Immediately I am reminded of the time when I was delivering a home cooked meal to an elderly widowed gentleman in our church.  I remember it was a fallish sort of day.  It was very hard to pull up his driveway because of the location and erosion so I parked next door at his son’s house.  There was a slight little hill I had to walk to get to the gentleman’s house.  On this particular day, the pine needles had really accumulated.  Here I go, bebopping along in my self-satisfaction of doing such a wonderful thing for someone who needed a lift.  I had the foil-covered delicious smelling food in my hands and my purse on my shoulder.  I start down the pine-straw covered incline and—you guessed it.  My feet slipped out from under me and down I went.  Hard.  My tailbone hurt like crazy and so did other parts of my body.  That ground might have been pine-straw covered but it was still hard.   Really hard.  As I dropped to the ground, I still had a sharp enough mind those years ago to protect that food so I held my arms out straight and held it tightly.  I actually had to sit there a minute as I even felt that my  head and brain goo had sloshed around, I hit so hard.  I managed to get myself up and put on a smile and delivered the food to the door to a very grateful man.  But…no good deed goes unpunished.  I hurt for days.  And days.  And days.

Many other times I have experienced the truth of this saying and I’m sure that you have as well.  This morning, though, I discovered something about that saying that I honestly never caught before.

I was doing my Bible reading and since lately I haven’t had any special thing to read, I just thought and said, “Hmmm, what shall I read today?”  At once, I thought “the Peters”.  So I began to read I Peter.  You will never guess what I found.  Or if you’re a more regular Bible reader than me, you might guess and be correct.  

I Peter 3:17 says “For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.” 

Well, isn’t that a good one?  Suffer for well-doing.  And that is better.  Goes right along with “no good deed goes unpunished” if you stretch it just a bit.    I would imagine that suffering for a good deed is much better than suffering for an evil deed.   Or at least that is how I interpret.  I think that a guilty conscience can be a much worse suffering than a sore tailbone!  Hope I can just stick with the suffering for well doing rather than evil. 

I can’t wait to tell my good buddy what I found…but then maybe she knew it was there already. 

Guess I need to remember, too, that “pride goeth before a fall”.  ;-)   I just might elaborate on that in another post later on.  Look forward to it.