Tumbling allong with the tumbling tumble weed

I'm still here!

I have been trying to spend more time with friend and family. I can't get out to do it sometimes, the weather limits me. I have been on the phone.


I don't have access at home for the internet right now and it has opened up the phone for visiting again. It stays busy almost all the time, I'm loving it.


While I have been out and about, too, spending real time with people, when I can't get out I can still let them know I am thinking of them. It has made a difference in my days to be able to hear from them.


I'm not knocking the net! I love it here. I research and learn and share here. It is a solitary pursuit that keeps us from each other. When I can't get to "real" people THEN I reach for the net where you all can catch up when you can.


It's a change I think I needed. I get tied up in only what I am doing and thinking and feeling. There should be more congregating and visiting in time I am not working and sleeping. It shows me there is more to life than me, I tend to forget that.


It does mean I am not here much, though. I have been missing you all. I will try to get caught up this week.

There are still changes coming to my life. Some have been good. I came across an old friend with an old friend of another friend along. We are all getting caught up again. There is a need for us in each others lives again.

I watch the snownados driven around the yard and fields and know how they feel. Snow added, dropped, picked up again; Size changed, larger, smaller; moving quickly and then spinning in place; all by a force I can't see or understand. Then the wind stops and they just fall where a moment ago they stirred things up so much you couldn't see the road.

I even saw one leave a foot print on the road in front of me as it went across, a small drift of thin snow in a path as straight as an arrow.

Life is good.

A fire is so delightful

February is a "'t'aint". It ain't winter and 't'ain't yet spring. The month seems to drag with storms and cold. I am tired of them and longing for a glimpse of just one crocus.

I have been getting the help I need to get through it but cabin fever is setting in for many of my friends.

The truck would not get warm yesterday, it would not thaw the ice off the windows. I had to run it almost forty minutes to get the thing to heat up. No clue there was a problem. Duh!

I got an invitation to dinner at work and went home to feed and let out the dogs. That is when I discovered that the truck had left a pink, wet spot on the snow. Anti freeze. It doesn't do you any good on the ground. I was lucky it was cold enough that I hadn't blown up the truck.

I figured out (history of S10's in my life) that the thermostat must have been frozen shut. It stayed that way and boiled out some of the juice. Then it thawed and started working again. If I had been smart enough to remember that happens sometimes I could have given it a thump with a hammer to open it up that morning.

Well, I wasn't. I am smart enough to buy and refill the antifreeze so the block was protected last night. It did just fine today. I was glad it seems I was right. I might have blown a hose or seal from the pressure. It looks like I am ok for now.

But I have had it up to here with winter. (hand at neck level!)

I had a good time at a home cooked dinner with brother and the Mom. He beat me two games of cribbage but I gave him a good match both times. We are re-teaching Mom, she hasn't played in a long time. It got me out of the house and out of "what's for dinner" and it cheered us all up.

The night of the big storm I had to keep shoveling the path at the back door. Even just to let the dogs out it had to be knocked down every time. I got tired and started tossing it short, against the gate to the back yard.

Now it's piled with frozen snow and I can't get to the bird feeders. It's part of my short sightedness that I didn't see the consequences coming. I only saw I was getting worn out by moving the snow and quit.

Crap again. I found it out when I wanted to go knock off the ice for the birds. Instead I got to see why it is not always bad that blue jays are so sloppy when they eat. They dug down and tossed what they didn't want on the ground for the juncos. It was covered without me even though I locked myself out.

Life goes on even when I screw myself up it gets taken care of, thank you.

Still, I'm glad to remember that spring always comes.

There is peace in the valley

Got snowed in again today. It's ok, I have what I need. It's time to recover from the grief a little and rest up some. I was tired when I got home yesterday.

I didn't do that much, it was the emotional toll I was feeling. I know so well the loss they feel of mate, father, uncle, son, brother. I have lost all of those myself. I can put my heart in their shoes and wish I could help. I know from where I stand you have to deal with it yourself.

I know the comfort of good friends and family that care standing ready to lend a hand when the world gets too heavy to deal with and I offer that where I can.

Now I have some time for chores for work online and I have time to do a few tasks I have been asked to do for friends. I will have time to call today and see how the kids are doing and the friends I have been trying to keep in better touch with.

Yesterday I got to see friends I haven't seen in two years, some of them. It was good to see that we are still friends and I had fun with them. Even in the loss of a friend other contacts are renewed that need it.

There was so much love there and so many people came that we were standing room only for the opening prayer. It meant so much to the family to see all the ones that my friend's life had touched. They had not expected so many people to come. It was amazing. I was glad for them.

I was able to do as I had planned and feel I did my part to show them I cared. That comforts me. The dogs are in and snoring, the furnace is coming on. Outside the window the beauty of the snow that keeps me home lifts my heart. I am out of seed for the birds is the only lack I have. I am grateful for the peace in my home and heart today.

Where is your love

One more time into the public breech of the "life goes on" dinner with my friends and family who are grieving.

I intend to go to help with set up and prep and stay for tear down and clean up. I have my food I made in love of them and hope we all meet and eat in peace.

I spent yesterday in private grief again. I feel more ready to face theirs with my own dealt with the best I know how. I can offer hugs and tears today for them more unselfishly than I once could. I can only try to do what they have asked for them the best I can.

This is the part of grieving I understand. It is "normal" for us to gather and eat together. It's part of our everyday life. For this group a large gathering is usually held outside with a fire but the weather is too hard for some right now. I know there will be one later.

When we acknowledge the loss of the companion at the table with us we also see the others we love are still here. We are still here to eat and smile and cry and comfort and cheer each other. One has gone on ahead but we have love between us yet and as we eat together again we affirm life is to be lived. Love is to be shared.

When we meet and eat today those of us with family at home will go back to them with a special appreciation of them for awhile. We are reminded they are precious to us and we live a little closer to them. In the loss of one is the renewed bonding of many who learn again there may be no other day to love them and show it to them.

We gather because we lost a friend, we will part loving the ones we are with more deeply today. It helps the healing to see that love lives on between us.

May all of you reading this remember the ones that you are with are to be appreciated and loved today - tomorrow may be too late.

If only you can do it, get it done. If only you can say it, speak it out. If only you can love them - don't leave a doubt that you do. If there are fences that need mending, be the one to attend to it. It is really up to you how you leave those that are behind if you step on the shining path unexpectedly. Keep your heart right out there and loving every day you walk in.

I don't know anything more important than showing those you care about that you love them.

Riding the storm out

It's a big snow here today. I had the day off from work. The memorial service for my friend begins at five tonight. I have to be a little early to set up my slide show for them. Then I will leave and let them finish getting ready.

If that sounded easy, I don't think it will be. The snow is at five inches already, the schools are closed and the roads are the pits.

I'm going anyway. I think the plows will be out by then on the main roads. I will only have to make eight miles to get to them. I think I can. I think I can. I have to go for my heart to feel right. So pray our weather clears and some plow guy gets a wild hair to plow out my Tiny Town today, not in the two days they usually take to get here.

Tomorrow I won't be going to jam session, I will be home and cooking, I hope. I want a nice dish to pass on Sunday when we are joining them again. That will be the real memorial to my big friend. The one the healing begins at. Today is for releasing our grief. Getting it out where it can be comforted by the love between us is important.

With the mate I kept it inside - if you thought the outside was crazy you should have seen my mind. I didn't understand that to release it begins the healing. I thought that keeping it in myself was being strong. I was wrong. It was poisoning me.

Once I could express how I felt I started to heal. I want to be there for my friends today. Those quiet hugs with no words still let you know there are friends who care and love you. It's important in the loss of your best friend to know there are others to help you now that one is gone from your life.

I still need a hug, myself, too. But I can let that slide today. What I can't let slide is that they know I care enough to come today. I will do what I can to support them as they go through the changes that are coming to them.

But just getting there is going to be exciting. I like drift bustin'. I guess I better find some more weight to toss in the back of the truck.