RICH MEMORIES

Well I am anxious to post even though I haven't downloaded any of my pictures from last week, Thanksgiving week. Today I am having withdrawl pains from being with family all last week and "soaking up" Mom again as we sorted through many rooms. Things don't have to be worth a lot of money to stir up RICH MEMORIES. Four of my vacation days were spent with sisters and brothers doing "show and tell" with each other as we discovered what was in a box or drawer. "Do you remember this?" or "Did you know Mom had saved these?"

Waking up this morning with a headache and that washed out feeling, there was also some contemplation time. Still going through some stages of grief, I wished I had spent more time with my mother. May this be a lesson to me and others for the future. I wish we hadn't been in such a hurry when we would travel back home. We always had so many places to go. If I could have sat with Mom longer and learned to sew and crochet and make drapes as good as her. If I could have stayed longer like she wished I would have. If we could have talked more.

You know the thought of trying to do so many things that you're not good at anything? We should try to focus on slowing down, taking time with less projects and spend more time with people like our mothers and fathers. Anyway, I shared with Rick and we had a long prayer for all the members of our families. May God bless those who open up their homes and let us stay for free and made us so comfortable. And those who put up with me, letting me just "dig in" to do some sorting. And each one who has burdens and needs and health problems and situations going on in their life that they need help with.

Well, anyway, we had a good time with so many. The Lord blessed us to spend some time with several we don't usually get to see on our trips north. And our stop in WV to spend a night with friends on our way through and again for lunch on the way home. Meeting unexpectedly with the daughter of someone we went to church with years ago and calling that friend on the phone on the way home. God had lead us through the same path of SPIRITUAL DETOXIFICATION and kept us both in a relationship with Him. I know Rick and I sure have been through a lot in the last twelve years. But as always, the trials worked to make us strong and be able to reach out to others we never knew would be going through the same thing.