Looking through my recent photos all I really see for the past twenty shots or so are work-related.  A delicious dinner party at the new BBQ place.  An artist teaching a watercolor class for veterans.  Screenshots of kids I don’t know riding bikes on the Swamp Rabbit Trail.  Specialty drinks at Rocket Surgery.  A milkshake giveaway at our local ice cream shop.  A portrait of a local business owner and friend.  The sign welcoming people to TR.  The FFA group at the local high school meeting our state representative.  Dogwood tress in bloom downtown. The kids taking a terrarium class.

 

 

It’s not a bad gig I’ve got going on here.

I like small town life.  Small town people.  Small town plans and small town work.  It’s satisfying in ways I never realized it would be.

This weekend I spent some time plotting out potential driving paths to Lost Valley Ranch this summer.  I’m still in fingers crossed mode that all the details will come together.  This year there are two complications to driving.  One – the Yukon just cannot make the old western drive.  At over 223,000 miles and of late a penchant for unreliability and not starting correctly, it seems unwise to risk those miles on that trek.  Two – the kids have pretty much staged a mutiny and they all refuse to travel through the state of Kansas one more time.  (After last year’s tornado showdown, I can’t say I blame them.)  Which means we’ll add a handful more hours to our trip and go a little farther north.  Which is cool.  But I have fewer random friends scattered in those parts of the United States.

So, if you’ve got the deals and the ideas for car rentals, feel free to let me in on your secrets.  And, if you have the deals and ideas for lodging in Iowa and South Dakota (or some place roundabout there), I’m all ears for those secrets and thoughts too.   I’d like to not camp this go-round.  Only because I’m not sure I’ll be able to rent a Suburban and the space is so much more limited in a minivan or a smaller SUV when you add in six people with long legs and lots of luggage.  Adding a tent and sleeping bags just feels like an extra burden on this jaunt.

This weekend the sunshine was a welcome sight and as I type this I hear rain on the roof again and I can’t pretend that I am grateful for it.

When we made our weekly trip to the grocery store Bergen was actually paying attention when I paid the bill.  “Uh, Mom – that was SO much money,” he said as we loaded the groceries into the back of the car.  (Where I was reminded that we are long overdue for a stop at the thrift store to donate the twelve bags I keep driving around town with.)  “We could get like the coolest air soft gun ever with that.”  Yeah, son, every week, instead of buying groceries, we could buy an air soft gun, or a new pair of boots, or a Wii or a sofa probably.  I guess our next financial solution will be to just stop eating.

The sermon at church Sunday held one line that I know I need to go back and think about some more.  We’re working through the book of Ecclesiastes and we just read the portion of chapter three about a time for every season under heaven.  The line I wrote down, the bit that feels Big to my Today, was Learn to be satisfied with God’s timing of your life.  (I can’t recall is that’s a direct quote.)  But you get the point.  That’s a challenge for me.  It’s so easy to look at my life and rebel against the way God has orchestrated all the things.  Timing?  A plan?  There are days and moments when I feel joyful, happy, pleased and at peace with what I have and who I am and what’s happening from sun up to sun down.  There are days and moments when sorrow rips my heart asunder and I look at my hands, empty of all I thought they would hold.  And I want to believe in the control of God’s timing.  Lord, help my unbelief.

 

 

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