A few weeks ago, I spent a
week at Grandpa 'Honey's' house, totally for some R+R time. I left with
more than I had arrived with, due to taking some silk flowers etc. out
of his basement, to use in future wreaths (yes, I had full permission to
do so).
We arrived home, played with our GRAND children (who had arrived around
midnight the night before), went on about living life. I was headed
out of town the following weekend and wanted to wear my tennis shoes due
to the weather predictions. But try though I did, I could NOT find
them!! WHERE in the heck were they? Thankfully, I had recently
uncovered an old pair of loafers, so I wore them instead.
Upon arrival back home, I searched again. And I asked other family
members. And I inquired if they were out in our van. I KNEW I had not
left them at dad's... I had tripled checked all the rooms before
leaving.... where were they?!?!?! I had no clue. Finally gave up the
search out of sheer aggravation. Sigh.
Fast forward to this now past Sat.. I wasn't feeling too good. The
GRAND children were again here, and I wanted to be near them.. if I work
on a wreath they won't climb on me as much (that proved wrong ;-p). So I
got out the small wreath frame I had purchased for a specific idea,
then went upstairs to look through the flowers I had brought home, to
see which ones I wanted to use. As I'm pulling various plastic bags of
flowers out of the paper bag lined plastic bag, I discovered my tennis
shoes, sitting at the bottom of the bags. "Oh, now I remember..."
(insert eye roll here).
This now past Sunday, we hosted our son Benson's 30th birthday dinner
at the lodge (just our little family and a couple of the cousins he's
always been closer to). Brian dropped me and all of the ingredients off,
before heading over to the church to run sound for the Praise Team
practice, etc.. First, I started the
Oatmeal Carmelita's. Once their base was cooling, I started the hamburger towards the
Yum-A-Setta.
While that was browning, I made a sign (out of paper hand toweling) to
wrap around a chair and put out by the driveway, letting the attendee's
know to park along the side this time (reason being, small children
traveling back and forth from the lodge to the play set). Broke the
hamburger up a bit more, then headed outside to set up the sign. Once
the mission was accomplished, I attempted to open the door and re-enter
the lodge. But it was locked. Solid like. And did not give despite my
repeated attempts to convince it to. "BOTHER!", as I palm slapped the door frame.
Deep breath, turned around.... I 'could' take the path through the
field, over the bridge and rail road tracks, up the hill and go get the
keys from Brian... Two things - #1) the oven was still on waiting for
the second part of the Oatmeal Carmelitas to be baked and the stove
still had hamburger browning on it. I LOVE the lodge, no way
what-so-ever did I want to be responsible for it burning down!!! Sigh.
#2) I had not traveled said trail in a l-o-n-g time. What if I didn't
take the right path? Various pastors and people of the church are always
encouraging the congregation to go on nature walks through the various
paths... I could just see me (aka: Ms. Vertigo) getting all turned
around and wandering for hours. . . . Sigh.
So I chose option 'B'. Walk up the ever so steep hill driveway (NOT
exaggerating here!) and go to the "W's" house (people from church),
hoping they hadn't left for church yet, hoping they were even in town.
'Nother sigh. So up the hill I went. I swear to you that somehow that
thing has both lengthened and steepened since the last time I had done
thus!!! Whew! Finally got to the top of it and started towards "W's"
house, only to remember it was a bit further that I had originally
thought. First, I had to cross over..., then pass "G's" old house, then
finally... Sigh. Off I walked.
A short distance later, a car approached. I waved my arm, palm up, to
try and get it to stop. The guy pulled into the middle of the road, sped
up and passed me in a hurry. sigh. Walked on. Soon another car
approached and I tried again. This time the elderly lady waved at me as
she passed from the middle of the road. sigh. Yet again, in today's
weird world, I couldn't say I really blamed them. . . but the distance I
had yet to walk, seemed to grow longer and longer in my mind. The third
car did stop. The window came down maybe a third of the way. A female
voice called out, "do you need help?" (or something similar). "Would you
make a phone call for me?" The window went to half way down. "Sure"
the pretty lady (maybe early thirties?) stated, as she picked up her
phone. I told her Brian's number while she dialed. "Hopefully he'll
actually get it and answer it" I commented with a chuckle. The window
went the rest of the way down and she handed me the phone. I had
expected her to keep the phone, but smiled warmly at her. Suddenly, the
back window started to come down. The lady strictly informed the person
sitting back there to leave it up. I heard a very young laugh and my
smile grew. The back window went back up and stayed up. :-].
Via a true miracle, Brian answered his phone. He does not get reception
inside the church building itself (it's built into a hill). A-n-d, he
usually turns the ringer itself off once he arrives at church, so it
doesn't go off while he's passing a door or something. He said he was
in the middle of the sanctuary, when his phone shocked him and rang. He
didn't recognize the number, but he felt this nudging to answer it.
THANK-YOU Lord! "Hi, somehow I locked myself out of the lodge and
there's hamburger browning on the stove, would it be possible for you to
send somebody over with your keys to let me back in?" "We'll get it
handled" "THANK-YOU!"
I handed the lady back her phone and thanked her, then started to back
away from her car. "Would you like a ride to the lodge?" she asked. "No,
that's okay..." "But you looked wore out, won't you let me give you a
ride back?!" I climbed in while stating my gratitude. Once again down
at the lodge, before exiting her car, I invited her to stop back down in
a couple of hours (telling her we'd be there all afternoon) to get a
couple of thank-you Carmelitas. While she had said it sounded like a
good plan, she never did reappear. But I had thanked the Lord for her
while standing there waiting to re-enter the lodge. My knight in shining
armour of a husband, himself came to my rescue. :-] I held out my
hand, "Hi, I'm Lucy" He laughed while unlocking the door, then headed
back to church. The next time I exited the building, I propped the darn
door OPEN!!!
Yup, still wondering about myself. . .
This is 'Lucy', signing off.
