Don't Look Back

My friend Char sent me this magnet this weekend. The second arrow which is harder to see says "No Longer An Option." It made me think, life changes in so many ways, doesn't it? We never know what twists and turns our paths will take. Some paths are straight and narrow, smooth and easy. Other paths are bumpy, rocky, even broken and dangerous, like a path I once hiked along side a canyon wall. I was so afraid of slipping and falling.
As I've gone through these months of fear and hope and then fear again with my sister as she has battled ovarian cancer, I'm reminded that we never know where life's paths will lead us. But one thing we know for certain. He who is able will never forsake us. He holds us in the grasp of his mighty hand, never letting us fall off that cliff.

I found this quote from Tony Snow. I wondered if he was facing his cancer when he said this. But it sums up pretty well the path I'm on right now, and maybe Judy's too.

"We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise."

-Tony Snow

Coming Home

My sister Judy is coming home for a visit next week. I am so looking forward to our time together. Its been a rough summer for all of us, and I guess especially for her. The news she received this summer regarding her cancer has not been good. So she feels the need to come home for a time, however short her visit might be, and surround herself with family. I can't wait to see her. Right now I choose not to think on the future, and what it holds for her, for us. Right now I choose to plan for next week, for the outings we will make, the tea we will drink, the sunsets we'll enjoy from the deck, the laughter that always comes from our silly husbands who choose to act like crazy kids and cut up too much. Right now I choose to plan menus for family dinners...and to make sure I have my camera ready for those pictures that will last forever.

I'll think about the other stuff another time... Hurry home Judy! I can't wait to get my arms around you.

Huh?? Are You Sure??

That was my reaction yesterday... as my doctor told me that I have the chicken pox. Honestly, I had been suspicious for several days, wondering about this strange "stuff" that was slowly covering my body, and the achy flu like symptoms I started to experience. But I guess I just could not fully wrap my mind around the possibility of chicken pox. Not at my age anyway....

I really wanted the chicken "pops" when I was a child, and I was exposed plenty of times. All of my siblings had the chicken pops, almost one after the other. In fact, my two sisters had it together at the same time. I can remember lying in the bed with them, just knowing that my time was coming. Then I too would receive extra pampering from my parents. I too, would get to stay home from school, laid up in the bed, enjoying chicken soup and new books that Mama would bring home from the library. Shortly after, my baby brothers followed suit, and they too received the special "gifts" that came from being sick with the chicken pops. But wait! What about me?? Alas, I never ever broke out with the childhood illness that everybody gets. I totally missed out on all that fun.

Years later, as my own children contracted chicken pox, and went through the agony of the itching, I wondered and worried, "Oh gosh, will I get it now, as an adult, and a busy mom who does not have time to be in bed with the chicken pox??" I pampered my babies as my mom had pampered my siblings. And, I counted my blessings as the chicken pox once again passed me by.

So....why now? I'm too old for this, well, no one really has to know that, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I just don't get it. How did the chicken pops find me after all these years? I thought I was well hidden.

Would someone please draw me a nice cool oatmeal bath? And bring a good book from the library, and maybe a nice cup of tea too?

This Time of the Year

my heart bleeds red and black. Yes, I love me some Georgia Bulldawg football. And I especially love Uga. I was so sad this past summer when our beloved mascot Uga VI died suddenly of heart failure. He was a grand mascot and a beautiful bulldog.

http://ugaphoto.alumni.uga.edu/multimedia/UGAVI/

But, we were introduced to our new mascot, Uga VII at the opening game this year. He's a gorgeous dog too. I'm sure he'll be a fine mascot. I hope he has the personality that Uga VI had.

http://photo.alumni.uga.edu:80/multimedia/uga7/index.html

I think it will just take some time for him to adjust to all the pomp and circumstance of being one of the most beloved celebrities in the state of Georgia.

So, for now.... GOOOOO DAWGS! SIC 'EM! WOOF WOOF WOOF!

P.S. Hi Kathi! Thank you for being such a faithful blogger friend. :)

Coming Up For Air

Oh my goodness, it has been a month since my last blog entry. What a worldwind month it has been! Since my last post, I've left my job, gone to the beach to visit my sister, been offered a part time teaching position at a local college, been training for the part time position I start with the domestic violence center, packed/unpacked/reorganized my home office, and preparing to head down to St Simons Island tomorrow. Whew!


I don't know if anyone is even still visiting me here. But if you are, thanks for checking in on me. (((Kathi))) Thank you for asking about me, and thinking about me. I"m going try to be better about posting more often.

My sister Judy is doing very well in her fight against ovarian cancer. She has finished six rounds of very aggressive chemo, has no hair, but is feeling great. Her doctors are very encouraged that her numbers look good, and her cat scans look good. They tell her they are very impressed with how good she looks and feels. She has handled chemo so well, and not had as bad a side effects as many do with the kind of chemo she has received. Her appetite has returned so she has gained about 10 pounds, which is really needed. And she says she can feel her strength and stamina returning with each new day. So we continue to hope, and pray for a miracle.

The family and I are leaving tomorrow morning for a week at St Simons Island, one my favorite places on earth. Each time I go, as we cross the causeway over to the island, I always feel myself exhale, breathe deeply, and my muscles relax. I need it bad!

Homewrecker

I think little brown Carolina Wrens are one of my favorite birds. I love how they are so litttle and round, and always seem so alert. I have another story for another day, about how a little Carolina wren came to see me once, at a sad time in my life....but thats for another time.

I was getting ready for work the other morning, and was happily watching through the French doors in my bedroom, two little wrens outside flitting around on my deck. When the time came to leave for work, as I was locking up, I noticed the two little wrens flitting around my grill and actually going in and out of the small vent hole in the hood of the grill. I thought perhaps they might be hungry, or could smell the grill, so perhaps they were looking for something to eat. I decided, since I was out of bird feed, that I would take some dried bread crumbs out to them and leave it on a small paper plate right outside the grill. As I started to place the plate of crumbs down below the grill, I noticed some "stuff" sticking out of the vent hole on the hood. I lifted the hood, and it was apparent that the little wrens were in the throes of building a nest. Since I was on my way to work, there wasn't time to do anything about it, so I just closed the hood of the grill and left.

When I got home that evening, the first thing I did was go out to the grill to have a look. When I lifted the hood, there was a completed, beautiful work of art. The nest was huge, and full. Funnel shaped with a little burrow way down deep into the nest. It was incredible how the the leaves, twigs, moss, even pine straw from my garden, were created in a perfectly circular design. Indeed it was a thing of beauty. And the wrens had done all that work in one day. When I left the house that morning they were just getting started and had merely a small handful of nest materials inside the grill.

I was so upset. I knew that we would have to move the nest because we are avid users of our grill. There was just no way to leave it there. I was so sad, imagining how distressing it must have been for the little wrens to have us open the hood, leave it open and later move the nest. My husband, in an act of kindness, attempted to make a surrogate house out of a box that I had saved from my new blender. He took two big sticks and a shovel and picked up the bird nest, so as not to touch it with his hands, and sat it on the white chair you see in the picture. Having cut a small hole in the box, the same size as the hole in the grill hood the birds were using, he sat the box down over the nest. All in the hopes that the little wrens might see it and figure it out. But they haven't been back. I feel so badly, disturbing their plans, wrecking the home they had readied, I'm sure for mama bird to get ready for babies. I keep hoping they will return to the box we made for them. But I'm sure they have made another nest, hopefully one that is bigger and better, somewhere else.

But the box and nest still sit there, hoping someone else will take advantage of it.

Happy May Day!

I love May Day! Its the promise that spring is here, the sun has warmed the earth, that God has awakened us, new and fresh, from the cold dark days of winter. May Day, it feels like revival!

I love the May Day tradition of leaving baskets of flowers on the door steps of those you love. I remember when I was just a little girl, my mom would help my sisters and I fix up little May Day baskets for our neighbors and family members. Sometimes they would be tiny little straw baskets that my mom or grandmother had picked up from somewhere, other times I can remember making the little baskets from construction paper. We would line the baskets with fresh grass, picked by little hands right out of our back yard. Then we would add fresh picked flowers, whatever was in bloom, from my mom and grandmother's garden. My maternal grandmother always lived with us, and she was an incredible gardener. I remember rows of rose bushes, full, fragrant, and colorful. I remember iris, and day lillies, and dahlia. And my daddy's azalea bushes, full of pink and white blooms in spring. But as a child, what I loved best were the tiny little wild violets that grew at the bottom of our backyard, under the shade of the big oaks. I thought those were the most beautiful little flowers. My sisters and I would play down there for hours, imagining ourselves as princesses, or orphans who lived in the woods with all the friendly animals (our ducks and cats and dogs played that part well).

Yes, May Day meant summer was just around the corner, the flowers were in bloom, and soon we would be swimming in our neighbor's small lake. And, May Day meant sharing that joy with neighbors and loved ones, in the form of sharing beauty. Celebrate!

My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come; the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me."
Song of Solomon 2:10-13
This is what I long to hear from the One who loves me.