One and Only

  

          It’s Monday. Today is Monday. I posted the one and only story I wrote this weekend although I do have more — and tons more photos, too, including twenty-two I ran out of room for last week. Friday flew by with a morning of shopping and in the afternoon I did get a start on downloading my cameras and resizing the photos. Then I got a headache and went to the recliner for some movie time with my handsome mountain man. Saturday I realized I hadn’t finished the photos, so I did that. Then I wrote Mike’s owie story.

“I’m glad it wasn’t more serious,” one of my peeps said.

That’s for sure! It could’ve ended up with broken fingers or, heaven forbid, even lost fingertips. As it is, he thinks he’ll lose the nails on both those fingers.

“Poor Mike,” someone else said.

And that’s for sure, too! First his eye and now his fingers.

“How is his eye?” you ask.

Getting better every day. The red is starting to go away.

Sunday came and the day started as most Sunday’s do for us. I showered, fed the cats (yes, before my coffee even. They’re not a bit spoiled.), made coffee, tapped out a love note, had breakfast, and got ready for Sunday School and church. After our regular service, with a very hopeful and comforting message by Pastor Jay, we had a business meeting.

“I could use a little hope and comfort in my life. What was it about?” you say.

 In a nutshell, Pastor Jay shared a Memorial Day message that not only is it a time of national remembrance, but also a moment to reflect on God’s final victory and the comfort He offers His people. God will ultimately wipe away every tear.

None of us know how God will do that.

Knowing what happens after we die, knowing where our loved ones who reject our Lord and Savior go after the final judgment, how can we not cry?

And not only just that, but sometimes we cry over the guilt, and shame, and deep remorse we feel over the things we’ve done in our life before we invited Jesus into our hearts and began to live for Him.

I was visiting that world this week. And I prayed. “Please Lord, fill my heart with so much of You that there’s no room left for anything else.”

 Pastor Jay’s message seemed like he wrote it just for me. He gave me hope and reminded me to trust God’s promises.

After church we had a business meeting, so that kept us there a little longer. We get home, I change clothes, make lunch, made a couple of phone calls, and talked way too long.

But the icing on the cake...

Just as I’m settling in to write, Tiger tries to jump up on my desk, sinks his claws into the rags under my jar of watercolor rinse water, it can’t support his weight and starts to slip, he makes a mad grab for something else, finds my mouse pad, and everything goes over on top of him.

Aye-yi-yi!

Water everywhere!

I dried Tiger off and cleaned up the mess.

Sigh!

No! Wait. It was more like sighhhhhhhh...

So much for one day — more than I could process — and it was all swirling around in my head and pounding at the walls of my mind. I was getting a headache. Time had completely slipped away and suddenly I had only an hour and a half until I needed to leave for Sunday night movie night at the church. I decided the recliner was the best place to decompress and watch whatever movie Mike was watching.

And that my loves is why you got just one story instead of all my jibber-jabber.

 

Tiger.

He does like to lay on my desk.

A few days ago, when I got out of bed and fed the cats, Tiger, sleeping in his bed on the chair by the table, didn’t come to breakfast. I figured he’d be up to pester me when I sat down at my computer.

He didn’t.

He stayed in the same spot all day.

That was weird.

The next day was when I realized that he has a hurt leg. He’s limping.

“Should we take him to the vet?” I asked Mike.

“No. He’ll get better.”

Animals do tend to get better on their own, as long as they’re eating and drinking and eliminating. And Tiger was — is.

A hurt leg is why he missed the jump up onto my desk and pulled the water over. I would normally dump the water when I was done painting for the day, but Tiger started treating it as his own personal watering station. He’s got his own food dish on my desk so why not water, too? It’s a tall jar so I keep it full, fresh, and clean for him.

The experience of getting soaked must’ve stayed with him because today he got my attention and I lifted him to the desktop where I took this picture.

Speaking of watercolors...

I did this cute mouse in my practice book. I was just putting the finishing touches on it when it was time to make my morning love call to Miss Rosie.

“Ernie was so kind to give us some of her homemade potato salad. Is there something I could make for her in return?” I asked.

“She has so many dietary restrictions, it would be better if you painted her a little thank you card or something like that instead,” Miss Rosie suggested.

I thought about that as I was finishing up my practice. “I bee thankful,” came to mind as I was outlining the bee. I took the page from my practice book and made it into a card. I hope she doesn’t mind that. I simply didn’t want to paint it again. Well, it might be more accurate to say that I didn’t want to draw it out again.

“I didn’t know I was making it for Ernie when I started it,” I told Miss Rosie.

The next day I painted this.

“I drew out some flowers and pots and painted it. Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of practicing,” I shared in my morning love note.

“Peg, you should think of it as something fun to do and not practice,” my handsome older brother replied.

I don’t find drawing fun, just something that has to be done before I can get to the joy of painting. Do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do.

The next morning, as I was browsing through my file of drawing ideas, this one comes up. It looked easy and I could satisfy my need to paint fairly quickly. I flipped the page of my practice book and it’s the start of a new chapter.

The Bereavement.

I don’t normally even notice the words on the pages I’m painting on. Do you think there’s any significance between what I chose to paint and the chapter title?

I learned a new bird this week! My beautiful Jody told me she was watching the Baltimore Orioles and the Orchard Orioles at her feeder.

Orchard Orioles? What’s an Orchard Oriole? I Googled it and discovered they are very much like the Baltimore Orioles only a slightly different color. Maybe I’ve always had these birds coming to my feeder and just assumed they were Baltimores. I have noticed that some of Orioles were much brighter than others. This one is a female Orchard whereas the males are a deeper rusty orange, similar to the Baltimores.

Thank you for the education, my friend.

Let’s end with some road pictures.

Someone lost their barn.

Dame’s Rocket. Four petals. Wild phlox has five.

We were pulling in the driveway and Mike says, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That R.”

He said R and I thought he misspoke. “I don’t see it.” I was looking for a bar.

“Right there!”

I unbuckled my seat belt, got up on a knee and was looking in the ditch for a bar. “I still can’t see it.”

Mike put the car in reverse, backed up a little, opened his door, and pointed. “Right there on the bank.”

My gaze left the ditch and looked up the bank. There it was. An R just like he said.

The rain brought an R up out of the dirt where Mike was working on the bank.

“Where’d that come from?” he wondered.

“There used to be a trucking company in here,” I reminded him. “That’s probably the R from FORD.”

Let’s call this one done!