Summer Thoughts

Oh the humidity!

Heh.

And yet our faithful little window air-conditioner is chugging away, slurping up all that bad humidity just the way it's supposed to. And I am ever so grateful.

And see my 'new' corner in the photo, above? The cool air from below just barely wafts to the top of the stairs there, so guess where I'll be spending my summer? In my own little corner, my own little chair, being whatever I want to be (smile. Remember that song from Cinderella?). It's an area perfect for reading and clipping coupons, also, and what a treat to sit amongst my dream-became-reality library at my right.


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I forgot to tell you that two weeks ago I looked out the kitchen window to our backyard and saw a mother duck with 8 tiny babies toddling behind her! Oh my, even on the farm we never saw ducks, just geese. Anyway, I whispered loudly for Tom to come to the window and he, Mr. Birdman, was especially delighted. We hope they waddled safely through lots of backyards to the river over a block away.

Speaking of animals, look at this:

What did we ever do without Daniel? I chase and play with him (I've got the scratched-up hands to prove it) and it shocks me that I once considered never having a cat again after we lost Lennon. 

Oh, what I would have missed! 

Daniel is like every sweet, smart cat we ever owned all wadded into wild-eyed, striped-grey fur. He has the best habits of Lennon, McCartney, Skittles and Oreo and it's like he's brought them back to life for us.

We can be so foolish sometimes. 

We read how the Bible says to guard our hearts, but we confuse that with guarding them against ever being hurt again. We build walls to keep people and/or animals out because we're afraid they'll hurt us someday--if not in word or deed--then by dying on us. And we worry that we'll fall apart, that God and Grace won't be enough.

But oh, the joy and laughter we miss behind those walls! The lessons and growth we get no other way, the memories we never make, the missing pieces inside us which we wonder about. Oh, what we miss.

Anyway. No matter what's down the road, I'll always be grateful that Tom and I bravely plunged and adopted both Daniel and Sammy. Every single day they delight me, especially now that Tom's working his proverbial head off (but enjoying it). 

And I wouldn't trade these two new cats for anything.


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"He must increase, but I must decrease."   ... John 3:30


Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.  ... Proverbs 4:23

(.... and may I always choose the right course, the best one which God mapped out for me eons ago.)


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"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all..."

From The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

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