Home

I've just returned from a long trip, not vacation, just a trip in which I still worked but my body was in a different place.  

I experienced feelings of "being sick for home," in ways I have not felt in years.  True to the nature of being desperate for home, our flight was delayed and hope deferred was bitter.  All I wanted was to be in my house, with my cat, eating mexican food, and watching something I enjoy. I wanted a shower in my bathroom with my soap and shampoo, something new to wear that was not in my suitcase. I wanted to have the fan blowing me while I was under a soft blanket and I wanted, rest.  Quiet, calm, uninterrupted rest, for my body and soul.  I did make it home, later than anticipated, and some of the things I wanted, I got.  And I was very grateful. 

It was a lovely trip; we spent a good amount of time in central Ohio which is where our family started. We took our kids to our favorite Mexican restaurant - Senor Antonio's.  Noah was gumming tortilla chips there when he was barely sitting up and able to chew. We had to tip extra for the amount of food that landed on the floor, but the servers LOVED him; because, no baby has had a bigger, beautiful, more welcome smile for everyone than sweet baby Noah.  We went to the zoo for the first time in over a decade and it was my favorite day of the trip. We saw some interesting things as always present in nature, such as a giraffe drinking the urine of another giraffe which was not our favorite thing to witness. We walked a lot. We pointed and said, "Awww." We laughed. We paid $27 for soda and souvenir bottles. Every kid left with an overpriced toy from the gift shop.  It was a rare foursome moment and likely one of the last of its kind. For we aptly determined while we were there that the zoo is for strollers, babies and toddlers and there were 1.2 million of those; the teens were not equipped to deal.  I ate up every last minute of this four hour tour in which all four people agreed to the same outing, and enjoyed - an incredibly rare feat. 

I think this trip to the place of our founding is also one of the last, or is the last, of its kind. My son is going to start driving this week. He will get a job and his life will start to drift from mine. It will become less of a foursome and more of a threesome. 

It made the time with family, beautiful, and achingly melancholy. We haven't had a trip like this since we lived in Utah and had to make the journey by plane. We hugged grandparents for quite possibly the last time and we boated through a thunderstorm with siblings and cousins.  We celebrated a wedding and ruminated on a funeral. We told stories and drove miles in a legit minivan. In the end we said, "goodbye" and made our way home.

On this July day, my thoughts consider the past and the future, and the future seems so close and full of change.  Memories of the past feel like they are slipping through my fingers like rain.  Death feels closer than ever before. Goodbye feels more permanent in my vocabulary. 

And yet....it is middle age and there is much ahead.  A lot of change, but a lot of good.  One thing I learned on this trip, my kids are definitely marked by this late childhood relocation, but they are still adaptable. It is one of the things I take great pride in - the independence and adaptability of my children.  Their childhood of transience has not been easy and I personally would have hated it if mine were like that, but it has shaped them for an easier transition to adulthood I think. They might not love what is going on around them but they can, for the most part, rise to the occasion. 

I'm proud of these guys. I'm proud that we lived through a twelve day trip and in the end we still like each other.  

I consider motherhood with great joy and ponder anew what would my life have been if it looked another way...?  

God knows the past and He knows my future and He holds in all in perfect and holy hands.  

I can trust that. 

It's Been Fun

It's the morning hours, and yet, it is still night. We reference time in a different way than we reference the light and the dark.  One day there will be no darkness and time will be irrelevant. "One day" applies to me with certainty but the timeline is indefinite.  For one I deeply love, it's here. 

"One day" that has perhaps been considered with trepidation for it is unknown.  "One day" that we know, in faith, leads to life.  We let go and take hold. 

My Grandpa is dearly beloved and he is letting go of his tired body.  Time is just about past and will be no more, for an eternity with Jesus is about to begin.  It was entirely fitting, and a memory that will forever remain with me, that sees us seated around a table playing Scrabble and singing hymns to Grandpa in his final hours on this earth. The soothing voices of my Aunt and Uncle mingles with my mother's and the comfort of a childhood long bereft comes back. I can't explain it, simply to say, it's complicated and beautiful and no songs about Jesus and hope should be silenced.  Because, it will be worth it all...  Everything of this life fades at the nearness of eternity.  The dying understand that better than anyone.  I sat with my Grandpa quite a bit today and I know he saw heaven. He sat up, and his face completely changed and he reached out his arms.  His eyes that could not focus on my face in this life were seeing something. So precious is it to witness. Joy. Complete and full joy from someone almost non responsive for hours. In fact the word I would rather use is, "amazed." In his face I saw that he could not believe what he was seeing.  That memory is mine to keep.  

My last words were not super eloquent.  It went something like this....  " Hey Grandpa, it's Angela.  There are really only a few steps left between you and Jesus and that is such a good thing. You're almost there.   You've been the best Grandpa to all of us and we all love you. Thank you for teaching me to play and love the game of Scrabble. Thank you for teaching me to fish and sharing that passion with me.  I love you, I really love you and we will see you later, okay?  Yep, I ended that sucker on an interrogative.  But the point was, you and I both know we're  meeting up again. I didn't want it to be a long narrative because we writers could go for days and there just isn't that kind of time. 

I'm sitting in his house, remembering one of our last times together here; he was teaching me to make fudge. It was not entirely a lesson for frustration was edging in; I wasn't seemingly an adept student and he was having a little difficulty executing, but the fudge was delicious. It was also the last time we played Scrabble together. Precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul. In the stillness of the midnight, precious, sacred scenes unfold. 

To the popcorn and chocolate lover, to the hater of Hungarian dumplings, to the faithful and elect, to the one who said I was the best girl on Nimisila Road, to my Sunday dinner seated companion, to the one who told me at ten to aim a little higher than "McDonalds cashier," to the one who faithfully drove me to high school, to the triple word seeker, to the dispenser of "qua" and "za," to the Scrabble master at whose feet I learned to love the game that now defines me......

Goodbye. 

My sorrow is deep, but it is temporary.  For one day I too will let go, and take hold, and enter eternity where there is no darkness and time is irrelevant. We will be with Jesus, together, forever.

Grandpa's benediction for Grandma:

God's been good and it's been fun.

God's been good and it's been fun. A writer could say it no better.  

Broken

I am going to make a statement.

We live in a world full of intense pain and broken things.  

There isn't a way that we can slap a piece of apple pie on that and fix it.

Tonight I want to send out apple pies the world over and mend the broken pieces.  I'd throw in vanilla ice cream or whipped cream if I thought it could add an ounce of help.

As you know, I have recently transplanted to Texas; the past seven months have been intense.  There have been so many days that I wasn't sure how to safely wade through the waters.    I would get to a point that I would literally be crying so hard that I couldn't breathe.  We have a "water closet" and I would go in there and sit on the toilet, cry into my hands, rock back and forth and will myself to stop sobbing.  I can try to explain all the reasons this timeframe is harder or different than previous relocations or other periods of stress in my life. I can try to explain that I was trying so hard to cope well and lead by example for my teenagers only to find the buildup had to have a release.  I'm actually not going to explain it because I don't have to give an explanation.  Everyone has a limit.  Let me say it again, "Everyone has a limit."

Gentle reader, when you reach your threshold, whatever it is, know that pain and stress needs an outlet.  Strength does not lie in keeping stoic, rather, I would say strength lies in the ability to process and get that garbage on its way.  

I haven't been sleeping well this week and I'm, again, learning a new job.  I've basically been a new employee for seven months and it is getting really old.  It is always traumatic for me to learn something new because I try to cram it all in there in a short amount of time so that I can be perfect before anyone notices a thing.  I can't live like this, y'all.  I am toast.  So at 2:07 am this morning when I was awakened and instantly my mind was alert and tracking all the delivery numbers, exam schedules, dentist appointments, travel arrangements, and new curtains...  I thought of broken pieces, shattered lives, and Jesus.

It is quite possible that I thought of you.

I have received no shortage of pain filled stories in the last several months; there is literally no end to the sorrow.  Stories start to match and my mind drifted from one person to another to another.  I must say, I felt so hopeless, like the dark was strangling me.  And then I started praying.

It is quite possible that I prayed for you.

And what I said to Jesus was something like this.....  "Do you know how much pain is in this world?  Do you know what people do to other people?  Do you cry tears like we do?  You have the power to step in and literally solve world peace - do you ache to do it?  Are you yearning today to make everything new?  Does time heal all wounds?  Do broken people rise again?  Why is coping so difficult?  Why can't I go to sleep?  Why is it 110* in this room?"  And then verses of scripture and individuals came to mind and I started praying in earnest.  You know what, gentle readers, Jesus does care about the pain in the world.  I believe that He does ache to make everything new and wipe away our tears, but that day is yet future.

For now, we have to process.  For now, we have to sit in the water closet and deal.  

We live in a world full of intense pain and broken things, but I pray God will draw you near and mend the pieces of your life.  I pray that you would know His love for you.  I pray that forgiveness and mercy would shine through your heart leading to peace.  I pray, in a most desperate way, that we all find faith, and God then keeps us firm in it until the day we draw our last breath or He comes again.

Conditioning

 Gentle readers....

It's been awhile. It's been just a little while since I have jotted some ideas down on paper. You know how I have longed to be a writer and you might respond, "If you are writing, you're a writer."  I think I desired it to be more of a profession, something I could pursue with a bow toward influence.  I am not certain how many people want to camp at my feet and listen to my tales, but I could see myself as a speaker. I think in order to pursue this line of work, within your scope, you must have an indefinite supply of material. In a frank conversation with myself, I determined that I don't have that. Words are not always with me, not all moments are for sharing, and I do reach a place where there is silence.  

I'm emerging from this quiet place, to peer out and say a few words today. 

Being a person of authentic nature, the first things I want to say are: "Put down the pizza slice" and "Don't get out of shape physically." Paying the piper at the end of the line is no fun. You should hear me huffing and gasping for breath while Autumn puts me through the wringer, and, under my breath, because I can't actually verbalize anything, I'm cursing every slice of pizza known to man. Also, I can be found trying to determine how the entire body is supposed to side balance on the forearm  and a toe and then dip down to the ground and go back up again.  What voodoo sorcery is this?  If my weight is being held up by my tiny toes and my broken shoulder is a "supporting" cast member while my butt is headed toward the ground, then it,  and all the weight in the middle, is just gonna stay there, it isn't going back up. For the love, have you ever? This just isn't the type of stuff you can do if you consume pizza.  These are the days of our lives.  My life.  Desk jobs wreak havoc and my neighborhood constitutionals, well, that's just not quite doing the trick.  I say again, "Don't eat pizza if you don't want to be the one following the 'modifier' which in video exercise jargon means 'the one who is less than or, essentially, out of shape.' " 

Life moves forward in Texas. We recovered from the winter storm, fixed the things that were broken; and, cut down the magnolia tree, shrubs and palms that were not salvageable.  I'm a little sad because I was quite excited about palms in the landscape.  I imagine you won't be able to get your hands on one this summer. We'll see.  Soon we'll be swimming often and wishing for more shade to hide from the sunshine. 

I've been reflecting in recent weeks about condition. Condition can be defined as an "existing state," and it could relate to a variety of nouns.  We have talked about my physical condition which clearly is existing in a "modifier" state.  We can talk about the state of our beautiful country; long may our rights and freedoms stand, which were bought with the blood of patriots that even yet might cry out from the ground - "Give me liberty or give me death."  Forever in peace may Old Glory wave.  America, you are beautiful, and I love you. I am proud to have served you as a patriot and I am proud to be branded a daughter of this nation that allows me to pursue life, love and happiness.  

It's the condition of men that I dwell upon most in these quiet moments and some of that correlates with the state of our beautiful country.  I see hardness settling into the bones of man. A hardness that is difficult to reverse. I see a hardness developing in myself and I call attention to it. There is a key difference between firm and hard. You can be firm in your values without being hard; I see that line blurring around me and sometimes, within me.  It can be difficult to divide right and wrong.  It can be difficult to discern. It can be difficult to know your enemy. My friends, gentle readers, when we find ourselves unable to know, it is perilous indeed.  I pray continuously that God will soften hearts. My heart. The hearts of my son's. The hearts of mankind.  We need God. Oh, how we need God to change lives. Please, Jesus, let me hear your voice. The voice of Truth over everything else. Give me discernment. Help me be salt and light in a world that daily, increasingly, does not want light.  Show me how I can do it better. I am growing unable to bear what I see around me.  Help me be soft in heart. To you. To the world you came to save. Whatever else I am purposed for, I am made to stand in the gap and represent Jesus to the condition of men that is hardening.  

Whatever small corner I am in, I still have a sphere to influence. I don't need a stage. I don't need a book. I need only to speak truth and love.  Love travels faster than the speed of light, no? And you know what spells love? P-I-Z-Z-A.  And thus we have come full circle. Catch me outside and we'll share a slice and chat. Because I love pizza and people.  I do my best work here.

Picture Me

I have been dedicated to employing a task oriented coping strategy for the past 6 months.    I have been very emotionally compromised; I would recognize it, detach, and formulate a task or a plan to deal with the issue.  I even wrote out my thoughts and plans for addressing some of these issues.

I'm sitting here, at my computer, crying and wondering how many more plans I should make.  How many more tasks should I assign myself?  At some point, I think I turn back to emotional coping.   I bought myself a book today.  An entirely depressing book that included these words somewhere on the cover: Forty, Fat, Fatigue and Hormones.  

Some people would dial it down and break it apart to the level that we humans are just a pile of hormones, chemical responses that drive our choices and define us.  I think we are a little more than that.  I also think it can't hurt to see what the hormone gurus have to say for the aging female heading into menopause.  This is where it gets real and you know who your friends are.  If they can handle you during a rough ten year patch, well, by golly, they're in for life.  (I mean you probably only have 25 more of them anyway.) My life is just beginning, but in fact, I'm an old lady.  (Except for when I took Noah to the school today and someone thought I was also getting a vision and hearing screen today.  "Yes, thank you, I am a high school student, here for my vision screening.  Thank you very much."  Let's be honest, it's probably because he is about 10 inches taller than me, but whatever.)

In retrospect, had I known what was coming after the move, I would have been more afraid.  And this is why the good Lord does not show us the entire hallway.  He lights our path just a few steps at a time.  We would be far too overwhelmed to know the whole of our life or even the whole of one chapter.  

I am working through this, whatever it is, fatigue, hormones, stressors I feel unequipped to deal with.  One day at a time.  Each evening I really do congratulate myself for getting through another day.  I walk the neighborhood and I pray; I thank God for this new and hard life that I know He will use to build my character, my faith, and expand my influence.  I know with certainty that He gathers my tears and toil and one day in the future He will hand them back to me as a beautiful canvas. A precious life chapter.  He knows the end at the beginning and He leads us to it.

It brings me to the idea of endings.  I just found out that a friend of mine passed away last week.  Incidentally at the time of her passing, I was wondering just where she was at in her cancer journey.  Clearly it is not someone I am deeply connected to in this stage of my life, but the time we were in each other's lives was very special.  I just sat and stared and tried to wrap my mind around it.  Mary isn't that much older than I am; she has a son.  And last week she met Jesus.  There is one thing to aging and it is this, I can only expect to receive news like this more and more and more.  People are  going to be at the end of their life as I ever move toward the end of mine. 

I close my eyes and picture Mary.  Beautiful.  Tall.  Blonde.  I would sit in church between Mary and her sister, Laurie, and I was basically an armrest.  We had many, many laughs.  People sometimes just keep me around for the comedic relief and not much else; I don't always have the wisdom.  In this case, I brought the entertainment.  I would often mention, in a passed note, during the last 15 minutes of the sermon that I really could go for a Big Mac and did they also agree?  Their eyes would light up and their shoulders would be shaking with laughter, and they'd whisper..."Stop it!"  I know it is isn't proper and I am rightfully ashamed of my drifting mind, but I can still hear their laughter.  I still remember the sound of those whispers.  

I close my eyes and picture Mary.  Beautiful. Tall. Blonde. Perfectly healed and seeing the face of her Savior.  Her mind was not drifting.  I am certain she was not whispering.  Laughing, though, I'd put money on it.  I know last Tuesday was not a bad day for Mary.  It was the first day she truly lived.

I think of the day when people will find out that I have passed from this life.  I am vain enough to hope that at least one person will be sad that I am no longer here, but I hope it will not linger and time will ease the pain sooner than later.

My hope:

1) My children will dig deep, leave out anger, and take hold of hope and Jesus (No matter when it happens, it is hard to lose a parent.)

2)  Ryan will know he has been the love of my life, but it is never wrong to have more than one love in a lifetime.

3) My friends will remember what has been my passion and they will pursue Jesus so that we can be together again one day.

4) I hope that you will close your eyes and picture Angela.  (Fatigued. Forty. Hormonal. Whatever you picture...)  Maybe this is what you will see.... Tears are supposed to be no more but I can't imagine it any other way because my eyes are the window to my soul....  Tears of joy and completeness as I lay my eyes on the One who has led me all the way to this moment.  He not only hands me a beautiful, redeemed chapter of time but opens the entire book built with tears and toil that He has lovingly authored.  I finished; joy is here for good.   It will not be a bad day for Angela. It will the first day that I truly begin to live. 

Friends, we journey through this life and it is hard.  We have some hard patches.  I am stuck in a hard patch that I am dutifully trying to find ways to dig out of.  Maybe it is fruitless.  Maybe the point is to learn how to engage ALL the coping strategies for harder days are coming.  I don't know, I don't know.

I do firmly know what is in my future.  I know that I will see Mary again; I will hear her laugh.  I will pass her notes but probably not during the sermon because in the presence of the Almighty we will likely not be so frivolous.  

No matter the journey to get there, cancer, COVID, floods, famine, ice storms, darkness, chaos, warfare that battles for the soul....   We keep our eyes on the finisher of our faith.  We take our stand here. For Jesus. For what is right. We persevere.

And then we stand before Jesus - the One to whom all authority is given.

We live.

The End.

Green Leaves

This weekend has been filled with balmy, tempered winds. The green leaves are falling like snow, blowing here and there, finally settling and cocooning my sweet purple, yellow and white survivors in the front flower bed. It smells deeply fresh, like late spring, and I am soaking it up with the windows open and the vacuum rolling to and fro.  A cloud has settled, in my soul, in my bones. 

I learned this week that my youngest son has surpassed me in height. This guy spends his time in seclusion - for that is the phase he is in.   I know he will come back to me and when he does, well, he will have forever left Tooker behind.  Both my children now look down to me and, honestly, nothing could have prepared me for the feeling that accompanies that knowledge.  Forever gone. Forever independent of mother. I knew, of course, it would happen one day. I knew it, but, I didn't know the hug your child gives you from above is like receiving comfort rather than giving comfort. That transition, well, it feels like permanency, and it feels like I didn't get the opportunity to celebrate the last moment I was the giver.  It bowled me over. Literally.  It will now be, "I'm hugging my mom because that is what a good son does. I'm hugging my mom because she needs my reassurance that she is still treasured."  

My oldest son caught me as I feel off his skateboard this week.  HE caught ME.  The baby with the million dollar smile is now a man child, trying to share his passion with me, and when I fail, he is catching me.  He and I spent hours this week talking about about a variety of topics.  I listened to him and thought, "It is so strange to talk to your child like an upcoming equal. He has his own thoughts, feelings, instincts, drive, conceived notions. When did it all happen?"  

All this Texas time I feel stuck in a time/space continuum, as though I have not come from anywhere, nor am I going anywhere.  I feel almost entirely separate from my own life and then there are this intense moments in which I feel like this Texas time has catapulted me too far into my future.  It's too much.  It's too fast.  I'm not ready.  And so this cloud has settled in which I have tried to recall every childish voice, mannerism and story.  I looked at the past and the present and spent time trying to marry the two in my mind. 

And so, dear reader, I have spent the last two days trying to refill my love bucket. The bucket that my husband knows, and likes to say, is so large, maybe larger than most.  (Simply meaning, I have a lot to give but I need a lot poured back in.  It's a big four lane highway.)  Between work and the stresses of the winter storm, and the personal losses of the last couple weeks, I feel my soul laid low and bare.  I read a book in it's entirety - 564 pages - in one day.  I ate silver dollar pancakes, which are my favorite, and which Ryan made just for me. Does anyone really like pancakes that are as big as a plate? I submit they just don't taste as good.  He knows food is the way to my heart; I am pretty girly but I also have some man tendencies, and that is one.  Ryan also got our old lava lamp working and it was comforting to watch it swirl and glob and blob; it reminds me of my childhood.  

I continue to wonder how the settling will be.  When will I feel it?  When will it be complete?  This disconnect seems foreign.  Is it completely new or have I just forgotten how lost you become?  I guess maybe what I forgot is every move has been its own phase of child rearing.  It has compounded the issues and this phase is the one in which I let my children go.  It is compounding the feelings of loss, and increasing the feelings of instability.  

I didn't count on that.  A marked flaw in the master plan.  

What if I still lived in NY?  What would it look like?  What would I be doing?  Would I be happy? Would my kids be happy?  Or would we all be longing for a change we didn't know we needed?

Please, Jesus, send a sign that we are in the right place.  Send us some old friends that take forever to grow.  Or, help us to watch the green leaves falling to the earth like snow, in February, with an appreciation of the deep smells of late spring.

One Thousand Nights

A warm hello to my dear readers....

I think many of you have been battling some colder conditions and some difficult times.  It warrants the need and desire to come in close and converse with a dear friend.  I, for one, do not so much subscribe to the "keep distant" philosophy that has been circulating for nigh on twelve months.  Can you believe it?  Twelve months upcoming.  I could not have expected it, and as you might guess, I can still remember what I was wearing that first and fateful Friday.  (It is these details that has earned me a name in my family.  How and why do you remember stuff like that?  Dear ones,  I cannot say.)

A life lived in distance is no life at all and that is all I will say on the matter. 

If you are still near my fireside....

Let us embark on the tale of a thousand nights....

Perhaps, perhaps it was not quite so long as that but it seemed it, surely as I am sitting here with my reading glasses and a stick of Trident.

I am newly transplanted to central Texas, still settling, still learning what is my favorite local restaurant, still adjusting to the yielding yellow arrow.  I have never lived in a southern climate and it has been a most unique experience.  I did not have it fully in my heart to embrace a warm Christmas; although, it did have a perk of walking the beautiful neighborhoods full of amazing light displays.  We don't all put that much heart into it in the cold areas of the world.  Upon relocating, I could not have anticipated the winter experience that was ahead for me.

The power in our home went out in the early hours of Monday morning.  I was already slated to be off for President's day and it was feeling like a bummer of a day off.  I had worked all day Saturday painting my bedroom and Sunday was spent cleaning the house and preparing for company that did not arrive.  Monday was the day of rest and I had visions of a couch, a blanket, sleep, and movies.  It is amazing how little you rest when calamity strikes.  There isn't anything you can do, so that couch, blanket, sleep thing could still have been on the agenda but it decidedly was not.   We had little cell service that day and certainly it felt like we were an island.  We cooked dinner by candlelight and hoped for better days ahead.

Tuesday dragged on and it was colder and colder.  We decided we would drive to San Antonio to see if we could acquire a generator.  It was a two hour trip; the warm car and cell service was delicious.    The weather conditions were much better down there and we were hopeful.  We spent a good deal of time calling and trying several stores, but alas, it was not fruitful.  The Home Depot had a line, manned by store personnel, for the plumbing aisle.  The women's restroom was completely unusable but not labeled out of service.  I could only venture a guess that the locals without power might be coming to use the restroom at the store.  They all overflowed.  (I never saw so many men going into the men's restroom - I had to wait on the MEN to come out.  Write it down.)  My bladder suffered.  We stopped at three other locations but no one was allowing anyone inside.  And so I thought of other things and rode home to Round Rock in silence. I drank hot tea, took ZQuil, crawled under 4 layers of covers and, mercifully, slept.

By Wednesday, I had this thing figured out.  Layers.  Layers win the day.  I read most of the day and played games with my kiddos in the evening.  It was miserable yet pleasant by the company I kept for the teenagers have ventured to the side of their mama.  We had mashed potatoes and pork roast so dinner was quite pleasant.  I never knew how well I could mash potatoes with a whisk until I had to do so. ( I do not like lumpy mashed potatoes - they must be smooth.) It became humorous and memorable to see the kids and Ryan roaming around with headlamps, to see how much hot chocolate and hot tea four people could go through in three days, to see how eventually everyone accepts the fate that is dealt.  I can still see my baby son cuddled up with me on the couch; I don't know when last his head was on my shoulder for more than three seconds.  I can see my oldest son teaching me card games that he learned at boy scout camp. I can see my husband cooking, and eating, breakfast for dinner for possibly the only night of my entire life.  These are some precious takeaways from some very stressful days.  For, as I said, we are not made to rest when calamity strikes.  We are constantly trying to find and reach ahead to the end solution.

Seeing the trees, the sidewalks, driveways, roadways...  Ice upon ice upon ice.  I have never seen such ice accretion in any of the states I have lived.  It's been something to see and something I will always remember.   I prayed Jesus to watch over my pansies and my Egret friend who looked so, so cold each standing in the near frozen pond.  I anxiously await a glimpse of Edgar and the sight of my pansies when they are unwrapped.  I believe God cares about even the little things. 

Our power returned Thursday by God's good grace.  The agenda for the day was fuel and food of which we only acquired fuel.  I've never seen a store devoid of groceries.  Aisle upon aisle upon aisle of empty shelves as though the Grinch stopped by and bent over to pick up that last bulb of yogurt and tucked it into his sack.  What an unusual experience.  The reports I gather indicate it might be this way for awhile so perhaps the days ahead will be a little more testing, because I simply did not stockpile for the end of the seventh age.  I am a hobbit and it will be slightly difficult to lay off some of the options of elevensies, lunch, dinner, tea and supper.

It has been a hard, but precious week.  Stress was evident, but what I know of hardships is that it bonds people.  The best camping trips are the ones that are actually unpleasant.  Twenty years later it is the "rained for 96 hours straight in '86" that will be dug out of memory and passed around rather than the "three uneventful days of sunshine and sailing in June of '92."  The best and worst come at us; we sort it out and we soldier on with the people at our left and right.

I've lived a thousand nights in 5 days and the tale is not over just yet.

I leave you, for now, with these final words that will forever conjure memories of a record setting winter storm in central Texas, in the year 2021, when I was a mother of two teenaged sons and the wife of one good man.

"Forget vegetables. All we're going to need is beans, bacon, and whiskey."