'Lucy' here,

    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.