autumn follows summer

Summer was crazy.  Seriously. 

We rarely travel.  But...

May: trip to Miami for Son's graduation with a degree

June: Gone for a week to convention with husband

July: family reunion on the Fourth

August:  
     1) Daughter went on her first mission trip, a big deal!  -- 
     2) trip to Wyoming to take a son to school for his first year -- 
                                         and when we got back home, 
     3) we went camping for a week and a half at the beach! Just what I needed!! Great time! Perfect birthday gift!

September, I was expecting to settle into a routine, but was feeling overwhelmed. The house needed a lot of catch up from being gone most of August.  Then the well pump went out and needed to be replaced.  Dishes and laundry piled up even more.

One of the Out West daughters got sick. We kept in close touch by phone and facebook, until she finally decided she needed to come home and see a doc who really knew her. It's been good. She is mending. Her plane back home leaves this weekend, and I'm a little anxious that she will be ok once she is back at her own place, looking after her own needs. It's a lot easier when you have nothing to do but sleep and eat what is made for you. 

The furnace went out the day she came home.  Of course it did.  Because life piles up sometimes. between the new well pump and the new furnace, we are going to have to reconfigure some finances. Not sure how that will all work, but such is life, right?!

Also, a dear cousin died very suddenly in an accident on the highway.  It was a real shock, and I was so deeply sad for a while. I will miss him, that's for sure! I am so glad for the rest of the cousins, who have all come together for each other is a wonderful way. 

So -- life piles up. I have been swamped in a pile of life! 

but in it all, I have been thankful for these gifts:

546.  time at the beach to be still after a lot of going

547.  a school for my son that seems a good fit for him

548.  seeing my offspring content in the lives they have chosen

549.  birthday cake made just for me by someone who loves me!

550.  family

551.  cousin care by phone

552.  being able to laugh at the pile that overwhelms. not always, but when i step back and look, how can I not?  

553.  truly amazing autumn colors, deeper and more vibrant than other years.  such incredible beauty!!


So, as the leaves blaze, and the air gets crisp, and daughter goes back to her own place, I will still expect, at some point, to find that routine that keeps being postponed.  We shall see. Life is for living, and if things come up, I will respond in whatever way seems best.  Maybe  having a routine is nothing more than a pipe dream for me. Life is rich and can't be put into tidy boxes.  Not this life, anyway!  Still, even if it's only a dream, I'll enjoy dreaming of the day when I have it all together.  :-)

Soggy, beautiful beach

One misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather,
I chanced to meet an old man clothed all in leather.
He began to compliment and I began to grin,
With a "How do you do", and a "How do you do", and "How do you do", again.

-Mother Goose

It was a misty moisty morning here on Tuesday, but we were on a mission, two of my children and I. We had to go to the beach to buy a season pass to give as a gift.

I love the beach! No matter the weather, there is something about
being near the water that refreshes and revives.

And a season pass to the beach is a good gift.

So we drove about an hour to the state park, bought the needed pass, and then spent a short 15 minutes relishing the beach in its cold, soggy state. It was beautiful anyway:

Being off-season, the picnic tables were all stacked up, waiting for warmer weather. Bulldozers were busy scooping up great buckets full of sand that had blown across the parking lot and piled up in the driveways. They carried it back onto the beach and dumped it where it belonged. Maintaining a beach takes a lot more work than we realize.

Brother and Sister walked down to the water and back.



The familiar lighthouse stood guard in the gray.


And on the road heading back,
a row of gingerbread up on the bluff looked out over the water...

this is what they see.


And there was this cool old building, painted on the side.


Truthfully, this time of year can be dull and colorless. It's been cold. It's far better than February, but still cool, and the earth seems to be waiting, waiting... for warmth and life to burst forth. The trees are bare, and the ground near our house is still littered with last fall's leaves, crisp and brown and dead. We glean hope from an occasional spot of green grass or bud, but most of the beauty is still only a potential. When warmth comes, things will change.

But for us on this day, running an errand in the cold and mist, it was a good day. There was beauty on the beach. And isn't that how it usually is? There is ugly and there is beauty, and we have to choose to see beauty around us. Sometimes we have to go out of our way to find it. It's worth the effort.

Soon, I hope to post pictures of warmer days!

More joys and thank yous:
108. nursery rhymes, because they are fun and they remind me of my mother and when I was small
109. a trip to the beach on a wet day
110. the way everything looks on a misty day, like we are living in a dream or a story or something

At the beach

There is a unique beauty in the winter beach, as in the winter woods. I love the woods in winter. The deep woods in January is silent and still. It's peaceful and walking there clears the mind. I very much wanted to go see the woods this January, but we were all feeling dragged down and didn't make it.

The beach is another story. The last time we went to the big lake in winter, we were impressed with the thickness of the ice, which reached several feet out into the water. The waves splashed impatiently against it, and I warned the children against walking onto the ice too far, so they wouldn't break through and get soaked. Last Saturday we went to the beach again. The sand was getting squishy as the sun came out and the temperature began to warm up a little bit.


This winter has been unusually cold for an unusually long string of days, and the lake showed it! I have never seen so much ice! Instead of a thick ledge three feet or so into the water, this year's ice reached as far as I could see, all the way out to the horizon! Daughter said she saw a thin blue line at the edge of the sky, but all I saw was ice. We couldn't tell for sure where the water's edge should be, so we walked out till the ice became flat and I told them that was far enough.




The winter woods may be silent and peaceful, but the winter beach is strong and rugged looking. I'm so glad we went.



That is a lot of ice.



The children found a crack in the ice that reminded us of a crevice in a glacier. Only small. You can see a reflection, where water shows, up there on the left... but then there is more ice past that! It's practically endless!


Here is the crevice up close.



This tall chunk of ice was melting in the sun, and little trickles of water were dripping off the side. It reminded me of the mountainside where Frodo and Sam finally found water to drink during their arduous journey. These are not Frodo and Sam though, these are two of my daughters.

This is the daughter who is not Frodo. She rescued my winter beach plans by driving us to the beach after I realized I didn't have a license. ( I dropped it somewhere and have to get a new one.)


The daughter who is not Sam has been waiting since Christmas to fly her new kite and hadn't found a wind strong enough until this day at the beach. She was delighted! After a few minutes, her older brother helped her rewind the string when they had to bring it back in. He's a good brother. We all had a great time.

The beach in winter is a must-see.