I’m linking up today with a host of bloggers and we’re all sharing a few of our favorite things. You’re going to want to check them out. The link is at the bottom of this post. Our world today is kind of a mess. Maria attempt to distract the Von Trapp children from the awful storm outside by offering some happy distractions, I hope that by my sharing a few of my favorite things, you will find a small bit of solace from all the crazy out there.
I think many thoughts. My brain tends to run on high speed and barrel through my days (and often my nights) like a runaway freight train. My husband can confirm this. Some of my thoughts are good and fine and actually quite brilliant. But many of them are unhealthy.
Hints of spring arrive in England escorting fresh air and percolating the potential of life. Neighbors scurry about pruning their unattended gardens wrecked by winter’s slush. These days, the birds chirp a little louder and the sky seems a little bluer. The sun is beginning to stay awake longer making it possible for what was once hidden by winter’s protection to miraculously sprout in spring.
I would love to tell you that I’m organized. I would love to tell you that the clothes in my closet are color coded and all of my “Tupperware” is categorized by size and color. I would love to tell you that my computer files are neatly put into folders and I don’t have a million tabs open in my browser bar. But I can’t. And we’ll save the discussion of my email and photo hoarding tendencies for another day called “never”.
I tend to think of winter as a very short season which starts sometime in November and maybe lasts through January. When most people in the northern hemisphere are sporting parkas in the winter, it is not uncommon for those in South Texas to be donning shorts on Christmas day. I’m caught off guard a bit when a real blast of winter comes in February or April. Growing up in South Texas, our winters were always mild. Well, I suppose I can’t say “always” as there was that one year (one – in my almost half a century life) that it snowed. In truth then, besides that one phenomenon, our winters were always mild.
As I watched the video I put together of our “life so far” eight years ago for our 20th anniversary, a flood of emotions made their way to my eyes and gently trickled down my cheeks. It wasn’t like other times, though. This time the 3 minutes and 26 second photo journal concluded with a deep inhale of relief rather than exhales of grief.
I’m not a big crier. I don’t typically cry during movies or other times when it seems normal for people to cry. Sometimes I’ve even thought my crier must be broken. But an event took place a few years ago in my personal life that turned my tear faucet on full blast and I thought the handle might be stuck.
“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
I’ve lived in a lot of towns but the town I call my hometown would be the small yet rapidly growing town of Lake Jackson, Texas. The city was developed in the early 1940’s by the founder of Dow Chemical, Alden B. Dow, as a company town for employees and their families.
Empty Plate . Full Heart 