Patriotism

Twice in the last week I've heard Taps playing as the sun sets.  That lone trumpet sounding the end of another day is so moving--even if you're standing in Lowe's parking lot as I was.  It made me wonder if military people are more patriotic than others, or if we just have more opportunities to express our love for our country.

Tommy reported for active duty with the Air Force two weeks after we married and retired from the Reserves 23 years later.  All 36 years of our marriage have been spent near an Air Force base, and we have been so blessed by our military life.  Friends all over the world.  Opportunity to live in Germany and travel throughout Europe.  Visiting East Berlin before the wall came down.  Minds opened by living among different cultures and people groups.  Children who can make friends easily and quickly.  Standing in the hot sun to see countless air shows and being wowed when the Thunderbirds perform--even after seeing them a bazillion times.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of negatives to a military life.  Tommy missed 17 months of the first two years of Lindsay's life while on a remote assignment to Korea and attending school in Nevada.  Crazy schedules!  Some weeks we communicated via notes on the kitchen counter, because we were never home and awake at the same time.  A dangerous profession. We've lost friends to airplane crashes, which always brings the, "it could have been me," thoughts to the forefront of you mind for a bit.

Even with the difficult times, I wouldn't trade our military life for anything.  It's difficult to put into words what it means.  Tears when airplane passengers remain seated and applaud as returning soldiers are allowed to deplane first. Standing when our flag passes by, singing the national anthem with my hand on my heart, stopping what I'm doing when Taps is played--all remind me of what a great country we live in.  And what privileges it provides.  And the cost to keep it that way.

Country Girl in the Big City

I am blessed to be able to travel frequently and love seeing new places. We often stay in nice hotels as a special treat. Last month we traveled to Las Vegas and stayed at Mandalay Bay. It is gorgeous--and HUGE! There are actually three (or is it four?) hotels within the resort in addition to an aquarium, the requisite casino, a theatre (where we saw The Lion King), and multiple restaurants and shops.

Our room was a king suite with TWO bathrooms. Who needs two bathrooms in a hotel? The master bath had a flat screen TV mounted so you could see it from the giant soaker tub, and a phone. Who exactly does one call from the bathroom. The sitting area included leather couches, a desk, flat screen TV, and a bar. Robes and slippers were provided, and the armoir was as big as some closets I've seen. The "do not disturb" sign was electronic. You pressed a button in the room, and the words were illuminated on the sign outside your door. Can you see it in the lower left corner of the picture? There was even a doorbell! It's the yellow button in the center.

I most definitely felt like the country bumpkin coming to the big city. All I could think of was Gomer Pyle saying, "Golly" in that long, drawn out southern way. But, it sure was fun!

Birthday Blessings

March is my birth month. I love celebrating my birthday!!! It doesn't bother me one bit to admit that I turned 57 on March 5. Not doing so certainly doesn't change how old I am. Besides, you're only as old as you feel, right? Which makes me somewhere around 30. It's especially fun to spread the celebration out as long as possible, which was really the case this year.

My first well wishes came almost a week before my birthday on February 28th when a couple of ladies at church said "Happy Birthday" as I passed them in the hall. Tommy and I flew to Las Vegas Wednesday through Friday before the 5th to see "The Lion King." It's an awesome production, by the way. My son and daughter-in-law called the night before my birthday with a nice surprise (more on that below). Many people took the time to post birthday greetings on Facebook. I got several calls on my actual birthday. My boss took me to lunch the Monday after. Cards came in the mail for a couple of weeks. I had lunch dates to celebrate with friends on the 11th and the 14th. And just this week, a surprise package arrived in the mail. All in all a very good birthday celebration lasting almost a month!

There were two extra-special gifts this year. First, Matt and Amber called the night before my birthday to say they had decided what to buy with some money I had given them and wanted to see what I thought. They then texted this picture to me and Tommy. What a special way to let us know our first grandchild was on the way. And, what a wonderful birthday present! This was the first birthday since my mom died, and I missed her annual call. Lindsay pointed out that perhaps God knew it would be tough not hearing from my mom, so He blessed me with another pretty great phone call. Isn't God good? And wasn't my daughter insightful?

Secondly, a friend sent this darling mug as a surprise. It says, "My idea of a good birthday is shopping for new shoes while wearing new shoes." I haven't seen her in over a year, and we don't talk except via Facebook posts. But she remembered how much I love shoes and took money from her budget and time from her busy schedule to buy this and ship it to me anonymously. That she would do that touched me more than I can say. It took me a good portion of the day and some searching on Facebook to figure out who sent it. Thank you again, Betsy.

My life is truly blessed--whether it's my birthday or not.

Maybe tomorrow......

Raise your hand if you procrastinate. I KNEW I wasn't alone!! It's true, I work better under pressure. But, that is probably because I put things off until I have no choice. The worst is when I put off a project or task because I think it's going to be difficult.

It gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger while I continue to do nothing. Instead of getting the task done, I worry over it for days before even beginning. Nine times out of ten, the task isn't nearly as hard as I imagined. So, I've wasted time, stressed for no reason, and still have to work under pressure. You'd think I would know better after 57 years. Obviously, this old dog isn't learning any new tricks.

Perhaps I should heed these words from Matthew 6:34, "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." (The Message)

Easier said than done, though.

Continuing to count...

In my valiant and sometimes successful effort to count blessings and not whine, here are a few more.

6) Heater repairman who was willing to work the broken furnace at my office into his schedule yesterday.
7) A friend who loaned me her sweater to wear until he got the work done.
8) The modern methods of communication that allowed me to easily let my boss know what was happening at the office even though he was in Atlanta.
9) Temperatures that were warmer than the previous week, which kept the pipes (and me) from freezing even though the furnace was out.
10) Sunshine on the snow.

Lesson Learned........Again

One of my biggest fears is being a negative person. You know, the type who always sees the bad in a situation and complains loudly about it. The glass half-empty team. Lately, I fear that describes me more often than not.

Just this morning, the sound of my neighbor snow blowing his driveway woke me at 5:45 (my alarm was set for 7). There I was tossing and turning and grumbling about not being able to get back to sleep. So, I gave in and got up and decided to go ahead and clear our driveway. What a treat I had when I stepped out the door! The full moon sitting just above the horizon in all its glory. (No this is not an actual picture of what I saw; it came from Google. But, it's close.) Thank you, God, for that blessing.

The second thing I noticed was that the newspaper delivery person had driven in the driveway and packed down the snow. More grumbling on my part. "Now there will be places where I can't get the snow off, so it will take days for that snow to melt, and he/she didn't even toss the paper on the porch, just dropped it in the snow, good thing I saw it before running over it with the snow blower," etc... We had rain last night before it got cold enough to snow, so there was ice under the snow on the driveway. Our driveway slopes toward the street. Because of the ice, I had difficulty getting the snow blower up the driveway (even though it's self-propelled). My feet kept slipping--until I stood in the lines of packed snow from the newspaper delivery person's car. Thank you, Lord, for your provision.

"And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord." Psalm 35:9 Thank you, God, for the reminders. Once again, I set out to count my blessings rather than grumble. Here are a few:

1) A snow blower to make clearing the driveway easier.
2) A neighbor who cleared the sidewalks in front of my house as well as his.
3) Good tires on my car that keep me from sliding on the icy roads.
4) A roof over my head, hot chocolate, and warm gloves on a cold morning.
5) The winter wonderland of tree limbs coated in snow with the sun shining through them. It looked like a forest of glistening rock candy.

My glass is definitely half-full. Perhaps I'll jot down blessings here from time to time and watch as it fills to overflowing.

Wanderings

If you know the Wards, you know we seldom travel by car. But in the past year, Tommy and I have made several long car trips and have enjoyed the sights from the ground rather than from the window of a plane. Last spring I blogged about our Utah/Colorado/Arizona/Utah loop. Today I'm going to highlight two other trips.

Trip 1Last August, we bought a new car from CarMax. CarMax will transport used cars to the dealer closest to you, but they won't do that for new cars. And, not all CarMax dealers carry all makes of new cars. Naturally, the one we wanted wasn't anywhere near Salt Lake City. It was in Baltimore. So......we flew to Baltimore, picked up the new car, and drove it home. Nothing like putting 2,500 miles on your new car in less than a week. But, what a great opportunity to break it in.

I'm a note taker when we travel; always jotting down interesting things we see or people we meet. We saw license plates from 30 states! And crossed the Potomac, Wabash, Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi, and Platte rivers!

Day 1 we drove out of Maryland and through Pennsylvania (including a stint on the Pennsylvania Turnpike), West Virginia, and Ohio. I had driven in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago and loved the rolling green hills. It was just as pretty this trip--white clapboard houses; red barns with ads for milk, tobacco, or local restaurants painted on the side; churches with steeples and bell towers. We even passed a horse and buggy near Quaker City.

Day 2 took us out of Ohio and through Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. This was what greeted us as we entered Indiana. Have no idea who put it up, but it was awesome to see! Lots of antique malls here. Wish I'd had time to stop and browse. The rolling hills gave way to farmland; there were cornfields as far as the eye could see with numbers periodically placed on the ends of the rows. Saw my first Denny's with a drive-thru window, but we skipped that and stopped at Steak and Shake for lunch. Yum! While we were eating lunch, we noticed several ladies peeking in the windows of our new car. Nice to know others appreciated it as much as we did.

We detoured a little to the south in order to stop at the famous arch in St. Louis. My first time to visit there. It was awesome! I loved the "stair step" feel of the elevator ride to the top. And, we were blessed with good weather and an even better view.


On Day 3 we hit the 1,000 mile mark just outside Columbia, Missouri, and turned north at Kansas City to press on through Iowa, Nebraska, and into Wyoming. We're talking serious farmland in Iowa and Nebraska. Farmers must be doing fairly well. We passed a farm with a Leer jet in the front yard.
I was surprised by the number of wineries here. And by the number of billboards advertising adult entertainment venues. And by the highway patrol officers on duty. We passed three in a quarter mile stretch who each had a car pulled over. Talk about eclectic scenery!

We wanted to stop for lunch in Lincoln but weren't sure where to do so. Tommy decided to use the GPS to find us a restaurant. It told us to exit I-80 down this two-lane dirt road past a gas station and between rows of corn. It was obvious there wasn't an Applebee's there, so we turned around and got back on the freeway grumbling about how stupid the GPS was. After just a couple of minutes, traffic slowed to a crawl. An RV traveling eastbound had crossed the median and both lanes of westbound traffic and was lying on its side north of the freeway. Had we not detoured, we would have been in the path of the RV! Thank you, Lord, for your protection even when we aren't aware we need it. Perhaps we can rename the GPS, "God's Protective System."

Day 4 took us through Wyoming and home to Utah. Wyoming is windy! Always. Most overpasses have windsocks attached with warnings about high winds. Snow fences (placed along the side of the road to keep snow from drifting across the freeway), wind turbines, and cows are now the "crop" of the state. We passed Buford, Wyoming, billed as the nation's smalled town with a population of 1, but it included a convenience store. We drove across the Continental Divide and ever closer to our beloved mountains finally pulling into the driveway about dinner time.

It was a great trip. We were thankful for electronics--using the iPad to make hotel reservations each day and singing to the iPod as we rode along. Tommy got the owner's manual read. We thought of friends who live in the states we drove through and how they have impacted our lives. But, it sure was nice to sleep in our own bed knowing we didn't have to drive any further than the grocery store the next day.

Trip 2In January, we drove from Scottsdale where our son lives back to Layton in the Jeep. The Jeep is our "toy" car. We keep it garaged in the winter but thoroughly enjoy driving it in the summer. We had loaned the Jeep to Matt and Amber after a hailstorm destroyed their car, and God had provided a car for them; so this was a good time to bring it home. The weather cooperated, traffic was light, and we made the trip in record time (for the Jeep).

Not so many notes on this trip, but pictures of the drive. It is amazing to see the way the scenery changes between Arizona and Utah. I didn't take most of these pictures (it's a bit bouncy in the Jeep).

Matt and Amber live in Scottsdale. Like so many large cities, it's hard to tell where Scottsdale ends and Phoenix or Chandler or Mesa begins. Although I am NOT a fan of the summer heat, I do love all the outdoor malls, beautiful desert colors, and the many things to do such a large metropolis offers. There are a number of ways to get from Arizona to Utah, but we usually go north rather than west through Las Vegas. As you travel north on Interstate 17, you leave the heat behind as you climb into Flagstaff. This is the view out the windshield as we approached the city.

Coming down out of Flagstaff takes you past the western edge of the Navajo Reservation. This landscape is beautiful in its own way, but it is also desolate and discouraging. I am saddened every time I drive through it about what we did to the Native Americans as we pushed westward. This picture is from further east near Monument Valley, but it gives you a sense of the poverty.


Next comes Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. Gorgeous! The picture doesn't do it justice.

That brings us into Utah where we turn left, drive through Kanab and begin the climb to Beaver.
Kanab is home to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, a no-kill shelter for dogs, cats, horses, and other animals. I had just read a magazine article about the director, who visited the shelter on vacation and ultimately moved from New York to Kanab to work at the shelter as a volunteer before being named the director.




You can stay on Highway 89 and drive through all sorts of small towns between Kanab and Layton, but it takes much longer. Given this is a 12-hour drive by interstate, and we wanted to get home before the predicted snow storm of the evening, we opted to press on towards Interstate 15. That takes you through central Utah, which is grazing land; and on into Salt Lake City. Sounds quick, but it's another four hours plus to our home. After 12 hours in the Jeep, we were more than ready once again to sleep in our own bed and not have to drive very far for a while.

I did notice in putting this blog together that, when we do take road trips, we seem to drive in a straight line. Google map instructions from Scottsdale to Layton say something like "turn north on I-17 and drive 200 miles, turn left at Page and drive 117 miles, etc. Perhaps we are so accustomed to flying that we automatically take the route the crow (or should I say airplane) flies.