All Along the Way

 Officially, we are in the "ber" months and probably some of my most favorite months. Increased use of the word autumnal is always welcomed. Autumnal food is tasty and dare I say cozy. Cozy is a funny word to me but maybe on another post I will write about that. One pair of my new glasses came and I am still trying to get use to them. In hindsight I wish I had gone with chunkier frames. 

Saturday was the memorial service for my friend I wrote about previously. As FB memories go a lot of her comments and nine years of celebrating our friendship are reminders of just what a lovely and fun person she was. I was hoping for a few stories to be told at the service but none were. Don't know if that is what the family wanted or if the interim pastor who didn't know her except for one visit in the hospital chose to do. But, we honored her life. I met the assistant principal she worked for at Asheville High School. What a delightful visit. I don't think Ann knew a stranger. She sang backup with choreography at at Sunday School party with me in our lip sync of Ain't No Mountain Hight Enough. We both loved Earth, Wind and Fire and sang and danced in the Mustang on our way to The Farmer's Daughter. Her bear at the backdoor story is hilarious but underneath all that fun was a woman who relied on the Lord to get her through so many tough days. And in it's a small world...don't think about the song...don't think about the song, her son works on our Mustang at the shop we take Mustang Sam to. 

When we woke up Sunday morning I checked the LSU/Clemson score thinking it would be another opening season loss for LSU. I couldn't believe that LSU won. Now where did that LSU flag go? Another chore on the list, find that flag! 

 I officially tendered my resignation from teaching The Joy Class. I miss my friends but the stress I put on myself studying had an effect on my health. Over the weekend I read about this kind of pressure and if it is isolating you, stress feels heavier, health problems become overwhelming and your general outlook begins to be more inward. The article gave me words to help describe how I have felt and knowledge to take care of the issue before it became more cumbersome. When Gale, the former class teacher resigned due to health issues, she came back a couple of times as a class member. She pulled me aside after class and told me it was difficult to be a class member after teaching for so long and she had decided she wouldn't come back too often. I know how she feels. This summer as I have written before went very differently than expected. The routine cardiologist appointment became a little more than routine. The time it took for a decision for what needed to be done was delayed several weeks by the lack of follow up by the N.P. The new addition of high BP added a little drama to the whole thing and thus this summer has been laid back, relaxing and eliminating stresses that caused spikes and such. I have been researching some lifestyle changes in having a little more balance to life. We have changed up some of our meals and I am working through putting exercise as a priority. That seems so strange to write that because exercise was always a priority. 

Last night I talked with a friend whose health has caused her to step away from a lot of life. She being always busy, thinking of others and doing for others. She has a few things to conquer in the near future. Some daunting and some just the ordinary themes of our lives that now don't seem ordinary but a mountain to climb. While we were visiting, an interloper disturbed the conversation. A stranger, but maybe the boarder renting the airstream on our neighbors farm or maybe not. She walked the gravel round with an eye toward our backyard. I alerted Roy when she circled back on her path and stood for a bit by our gate on the driveway. Then headed down toward the main road. He went outside and it worked out that he was doing a regular nightly thing with the Feral Fam. Roy came inside and before long the young lady came up our road carrying a big ol' cat. It had gotten out. I felt like she was the boarder at the farm but just to be on the safe side cause there are reports here and there of people scoping out homes. 

After several weekends of making tacos, we will have a blip on that record. In May at VBS training we had a taco bar and I had forgotten about shell tacos cause I made soft ones regularly. Since then we have been on a hard shell kick. This is not to be confused with hard shell Baptists. Queso, meat, lettuce and tomatoes are much easier to stomach. This weekend I am making Carol Billing's famous chicken tortilla soup, chicken broth based. Roy loves it! He kind of wanted Taco Soup but it really needs to be chilly temps outside to truly appreciate the tastiness of such an easy recipe.  

During the summer we had planned on visiting churches around the area. I chose them merely on aesthetics. They looked beautiful but a couple of things happened to those plans. Heart stuff slowed me down quite a bit and some of the churches are down to like 13-15 people. That would just feel weird to me. 

I came across the snippets of a Pod Cast, with visuals so that's what kept me interested for those couple of minutes. It was an interview with Fannie Flagg. She is known for Fried Green Tomatoes. She told the story of how she won a writing contest and met Eudora Welty. As she continued working on the manuscript that could not find a publisher, by chance she met Harper Lee. Harper Lee encouraged her to keep working and keep at it and finally, as we know the rest of the story it was published and became a movie. Fannie Flagg said until the manuscripts acceptance, she was told, no one is interested in a story about a woman in a nursing home. Guess some beg to differ. I also came across an article or a Substack thingy, by Karen Swallow Prior. Her thoughts and outlook? Well, I find them refreshing and she is so articulate as well as poignant as she selects and shares her thoughts. While academia has never held any sway over me, her experiences translate into mine on a much smaller stage...no stage, maybe a tiny step. So, as we've made decisions and choices based mainly and mostly on my health, there are some contributing factors that have truly made a path for us we never expected to take. Of course, that is true about so much of life. Are we willing to trust the Lord? Will we trust Him by faith? We have made that decision of yes, we will. A couple of weeks ago the choir sang with the congregation added, "So Send I You." I haven't heard that song since I was in elementary school. At the close of the service we sang, "Wonderful Words of Life." We sang the three verse version but I have seen five or six verse versions. Just reaffirming to us knowing we have been led by the Spirit as all along the way reassurances of, "this is the way."