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| Plumbago bush in our yard January 2, 2024 |
Please forgive if you get tired of me saying every winter how thrilled I am to have flowers like this in my yard in the dead of winter.
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| my deck in April 2017 Castle Rock, Colorado |
After many happy years in Colorado, where snow on my property was most definitely an annual event, now the delights of warmer winters in Florida are a welcome change.
The snapshot of snow-covered deck furniture was taken during my last winter SPRING, actually, in Colorado. My Colorado friends know scenes like this are entirely within the realm of normal. But in all fairness, I hasten to add that the elevation of my home then was 6,000 feet higher than the near sea level where I live now.
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| what a difference a few feet can make! 😏 |
Time marches on and so many aspects of our lives quickly change. This new year of 2025 has gotten off to a terrible start, as you all know if you keep up with the news. I won't get into that but will share with you Gary's words to me just about any time I leave the house without him:
Be watchful, be careful
Look around you
... and similar admonitions to be aware of what's going on around me as I drive, exit and enter the car, enter and exit stores, encounter other people, and so forth. Also, if you see something, say something. This is how we have to live now.
Moving on to more pleasant topics...
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| at-home service call |
After we bought our Ford Maverick truck in late 2023, we were introduced to the practice of service calls where the dealer sends the workers to our house instead of us having to drive 20-30 minutes to the service center. The above picture was taken as the serviceman from Ford prepared to change the oil in our truck. He moved the vehicle into the street and did it all right there. We've had them come for other services, too. It's worked out very well. So that's something new to us in our rapidly changing world.
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| my basement storage in Colorado 2017 |
Another change that has come back to mind recently is my storage options as we packed away Christmas decorations. The husband-and-son-built shelves in the basement of my last Colorado house held even more banker boxes than illustrated in these pictures, all carefully recorded by number with a computer spread sheet identifying the contents for easy location. It was a thing of beauty! an organizational delight! (This professionally-trained secretary was in her glory!!)
These memories came to mind as I wrapped and tucked away the nativity animals into only one of two banker boxes now designated for Christmas. Retirement and other life alterations define my current home with much less square footage. But it's okay. "In acceptance is peace," as the missionary to India, Amy Carmichael, was quoted as saying.
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| Christmas trees and boxes |
I've said before that a few years ago I was more than happy to unload my 6-7 foot artificial tree onto my daughter's family so I could buy a table-top tree that has much fewer ornaments and gets stored away upright in a closet, covered with a plastic bag.
When Gary and I celebrated our first Christmas together, I saw that he had already been doing that same thing for years. His tree is the white one and mine is underneath the black bag in the corner.
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| my December wardrobe |
Do my readers have special clothing they wear just for the holidays? I try to not buy much along these lines since these things are appropriate for such a short span of time. I've had all of these for anywhere from 3 to 8 years (when you only wear them one month out of twelve, as long as you don't stain them, they take a long time to wear out!). I carefully fold them after New Year's Day to store in a box -- no sense in having them on hangars taking up that space for 11 months.
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| Veterans Memorial Cemetery Bushnell, Florida |
Continuing on the subject of packing away Christmas, today we drove to the cemetery to retrieve the artificial wreaths we had placed at the graves of our late spouses a month ago. Not all of the grave areas had wreaths, for reasons unknown to us.
We have taken live wreaths in the past, placing them earlier in the month than the cemetery volunteers do. We have been dismayed at how quickly they dry out and look ugly. We don't know if our graves are to be included in the big wreath-distribution effort, so we have taken our own, and this year (last month) we took artificial ones.
That has proven to be a good plan. We secured them to the ground with landscaping pins so when we got them today, they were just as we had left them. The red bows were fading from red to orange, but we can easily replace those next year.
Of course, visiting the cemetery is a somber activity, but we like to do it about once a month or so, schedules and weather-permitting. For us it's cathartic. Maybe visiting the cemetery isn't for everyone, but it works for us.
One of my widow friends, Sue, has said to me more than once that grief never goes away. You learn to live with it. That may smack of hopelessness but it's not. It just means that we love our departed ones so those feelings remain and we learn to accept them. But (at least for me) it does get a little easier.
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| from FaceBook |
This graphic may be appropriate. Perhaps our goal should be the big dog .... Grow to where the "stuff" doesn't hamper us so much. Our survival and sanity are at stake.
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| Long Horn Steak House |
On a lighter note, as I box up the Christmas memories for 2024, both of us received a number of restaurant gift cards for Christmas (as well as the luxuries of chocolate, fruit, popcorn, nuts and cheeses). We used one of those cards on New Year's Eve for our celebratory lunch.
Be sure to note the Christmas balls dangling from the cowboy's hand as he galloped through the dining room. If you examine closely the horse's back knees, you can see Gary's handsome head in our booth. He's got a head of pure white hair (which I love!).
The last of the chocolate disappeared yesterday, which is good because their weight has begun to show up on my bathroom scale!
In early November I began a personal study in my daily quiet times with the Lord with the reading of this book. Adversity in my life in recent years led me to think about Old Testament Joseph and how he handled his troubles. This was an intriguing study that had me underlining and hi-lighting many sentences that spoke to my own issues, helping me to make sense of many things. I highly recommend it.
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| blooming Azaleas in January |
January has got off to a rough start. With our culture as it is, we need to be watchful, to be aware of what is going on around us. But we also need to be looking up to our Lord, believing He has it all in His sight. Nothing escapes His notice. For those of us who know Him and believe Jesus has redeemed us from our sins, we can confidently agree with the Apostle Paul:
In all things God works for the good
of those who love Him,
who have been called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28 NIV
Until next time, grace and peace.
