Flowers

This past weekend brought us some very pleasant weather, along with some equally pleasant Labor Day plant sales, so off I went on Saturday to buy some flowers. I had a great time filling my shopping basket with all different types. When all was said and done, I ended up with six pots planted, but this is the only picture that turned out well enough to post.

I did feel a little strange buying so many flowers so late in the year, but I suppose there won't be a frost date looming around the corner here like there always was in Morgantown about this time. Hopefully I will get some good life out of these plantings - the way things are going weather-wise here, I'm not expecting any kind of cold weather until at least late October.

Yesterday we (the family) decided that we should consolidate our still-remaining boxes to one side of the garage so that we could pull a car in. Of course, the boys were wailing in protest at this idea, since they have been told that as soon as the garage is cleared out, they can have a ping pong table in there. However, we assured them that this idea met both goals - room for a (fold-up) ping pong table, and a car. Those two activities (parking and playing) will just have to take turns.

As a result, I did some reshuffling of boxes this morning in the garage before it got too hot. Of course, I found several boxes of things that I'm ready to unpack in the house now. This means the garage now looks a little better, while the inside of the house (which had been looking pretty good) looks a little worse. So it is, with unpacking, of course. One step forward, two steps back. Or is that two steps forward, one step back.

I think I'll go with that second one. It's getting there - it just takes awhile.

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Random Friday Thoughts

Here are some random thoughts for today:

1. Had a good workout at the gym today. I didn't learn too much interesting from the row of TVs , but I did notice that the parking lot was looking a little weak today. Usually the gym parking lot looks just like a luxury car dealership - over two-thirds of the cars there are Mercedes, Lexuses, and BMWs. Today there was a rampant outcropping of Toyotas, Hondas, and Fords. Even the red Ferrari that is there every day was missing today (yes, seriously). Which begs the question: Where were all the rich people today?

2. In other gym news, my iTouch did finally start taking a charge the other day, so I don't have to work out sans music. In fact, I am now protected from this from happening by my kind mom, who sent me a check to hold onto in case the battery does indeed decide to die. (Thanks, Mom).

3. I signed up for Facebook again today. I was resisting, but everyone around me kept seeming to know these little bits of information about everyone else that they read on Facebook, and I got tired of being out of the loop. Fortunately, they didn't erase my profile, so the friends from before that I so seriously neglected were still there. (Hmmm...I suppose they didn't erase my profile just in case they wanted to glean information from it in the case that they reverse that controversial Facebook policy...)

4. There is a new batch of pollen/moss balls now, after the previous ones were swept away. This batch is made up of smaller balls, for some reason. The other day after I wrote that "Tree Droppings" post, I actually saw the tree drop several of these. For some reason I was a little embarrassed, as if I had witnessed some tree indiscretion for a moment. Like it lost all sense of personal tree hygiene, as it were.

5. In other home/agricultural news, I moved my little seedlings up off the ground, and this seems to have thwarted the little bugs that were eating them. I think they're looking pretty good. I'm pretty sure they like this cooler weather we're having - that's usually good for seedlings.

6. Weekend forecast: busy. We have two evening dinner invitations, one birthday party, Jacob is going to the Clovis Rodeo tomorrow with a friend, and we have at least five "Perseverance Lessons" for the boys to attend. (a.k.a. sporting events). I'm all set for that, though, with my new mug from my friend Sandra. It's the best mug EVER:Even the inside is cool:

I'm just going to fill it up with some strong coffee, take it to the games, and watch away. Thanks, Sandra!

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The God Filter

It's early still here on the West Coast, but I have to admit that today already has the workings of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It's actually been percolating in the big coffee pot of my life for several days now, but I'm afraid someone left the top off of the pot this morning, and it's all threatening to spurt out everywhere.

I hesitate to write about this because I don't want to be one of those negative, gripey people who are complaining all the time. I don't want to be a "glass-half-full" person, and I certainly don't want to make others feel bad or unsettled by my mulling over these things out loud. I want my blog to be a positive place, filled with goodness and light, with a fair sprinkling of wit and dry humor on top. However, I think we all would be amiss to think or act like there are no annoying or stinky things in life. I think that a greater good can come from facing adversities big and small and seeing them through the God filter that we've been given. In this was can hopefully shun these minor things that don't matter, and set our minds on greater things, as it were.

Plus, I learned long ago that I personally can get through yucky things better by getting them out in the open, talking (and usually writing) through them, and then going on. I think that my God filter is harder for me to apply when I keep things inside, and almost impossible to use when I try to pretend that everything is just fine. Perhaps it says this on the God Filter instruction sheet somewhere. Something like fine print that says, "for external use only".

It probably also talks somewhere on the God Filter instruction sheet that talking to others constantly about our troubles is not such a good thing, either. Negativity breeds negativity, you know. So, I suppose there is that fine line somewhere, as there is in most things.

Anyway. That being said, here are the things that are on my "Terrible, Horrible, No Good List" for this morning.

1. For some reason, I was convinced that the Open House on our Morgantown house would be very well attended this past weekend, and that it would be the thing that would bring us a buyer. We haven't heard any news about the Open House at all, and I'm assuming that no news is bad news in this situation. We also haven't had any calls about offers from it, either.

2. I think I might need to start job hunting. Today. (See #1).

3. I think I might need to go back to West Virginia to check on the house now. (See #1).

4. All I'm going to say about our current sports situation is that from now on, I'm going to refer to the boys' sporting events as our "Perseverance and Persistence in the Face of Challenging Times" lessons. See, that's putting a positive spin on it, isn't it? (Please notice that I said that they were "our" lessons.) I guess I could also call these events our "Realizing That Our Value Comes from So Much More Than What Happens in a Ball Park or Gym" Lessons.

5. My Ipod touch is no longer charging. Most of you know that this is a piece of technology that I love and depend on for entertainment value, especially during gym workouts. Unfortunately, it costs about $80 to replace an iTouch battery (see #1).

6. Little bugs are eating my beautiful perennial seedlings that I was planning to nurture with love and eventually plant at our new house. It's a bug all-you-can-eat salad bar out there for them. Some of these are seeds that I brought with me from my flowers in Morgantown, so they kind of have a sentimental value.

Now, let me place the God Filter over that...and of course I can see that none of that really matters at all. In fact, with the God Filter over it, I can't really see any of those things at all anymore. For some reason I just see a mental pictures of a spring of water... here is Jeremiah 2 again:

My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that can not hold water.

Today I think I will just pray that God will set my mind on that spring of water - and I'll keep that God filter handy, just in case.

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