Seasons » life, laughter and little things

[five minute friday] loud

Spring is loud here.

Thunderstorms, lightning, hail and that eerie wail of the tornado sirens at all hours of the night.

Rain that pours like ever so many buckets from the sky.

Birds that sing all night, joined by the softer sounds of frogs and crickets.

But, oh is it ever beautiful.

Redbud, Tulip Trees, Cherry, peach and Dogwoods—all bursting into bloom in their turn.

Carpets of violets, and patches of sunshine in the faces of daffys and narcissus.

And that vivid green of new leaves that I can’t stop looking at.

I soak it all in—the quiet, the loud, like so many unexpected gifts. Because each new season reminds me of the promise that God fulfills time after time, year after year that seasons will always be. It fills me with hope to see new life, new beauty and reminds me that He can even use ordinary me to make life beautiful.

written for five minute friday

splash of color

It is rainy and cold and the sky is grey, but today my world is ablaze with color. I look out the window and can hardly believe that this is my world. My camera doesn’t cooperate, and the image is but a shadow of the brilliance I see. If only you could see it as I do…

I think I could live here a dozen years or more, and still get lost in the beauty each autumn. The reminder that change is but the promise of a new beginning. And that even in death, there is beauty and hope.

its cold outside

It is no doubt that autumn is full swing in this corner of the world. The leaves are tinted gold and orange and vibrant red and every morning at first light, I am thrilled once again by the beauty of it all. It is truly one of the best things about living where I do.

For the most part, the weather has been mild, perfect for walking. Yesterday, it was 85, in fact! But, as a testimony that even Alaskan Grown bones can experience acclimatization, when it dropped to around 50 for a high today, and with temps cooling off even more for the night, I came home to our unheated house, rescued my violets, closed up all the windows, got a cup of tea and crawled straight under the blankets and have sat here ever since. I’m in no hurry to leave. At least, here it is warm again.

While I love summer and sunshine and heat, I am glad that at least now I can drink tea, and have a good excuse to make hot drinks for Scott and I on the evenings we have together. Plus, I kind of missed my fuzzy socks.

Tomorrow holds little promise of being warmer, but I’m counting on these cold days to intensify the colors of the season and to make these autumn days feel cozy.

Tropical Storms and Hot Drinks

Tropical Rainstorm Lee blew in. It dumped almost 10 inches in 24 hours, (and broke a record, by the way) and changed us from drying up to floating away on flash floods quite literally overnight. The biggest change for us, however, has been the drastic drop in temperatures. Having skipped the AC entirely this summer, our home was often 93 + inside for the past few months. Within that 24 hour period it has instead been hovering closer to 68. While that isn’t really cold, it surely feels like it when you aren’t use to it!

So I’ve pulled out something warm and cozy, heated myself up a cup of herbal coffee, and am thinking that it is a good evening to find those fuzzy socks and wear them again.

The sun will no doubt be back, and I’ll be more than happy to put on my sandals again and enjoy warmer weather before winter sets in. But for now, it feels good to have a warm drink in my hands, and to feel a little cool.

And, at this rate, I wonder what it’ll be like tomorrow?

Beautiful Tennessee Spring

There is nothing quite like Springtime in Tennessee. There have been things blooming since the end of February, but the past few weeks have been like the great crescendo of springtime as dogwood and red bud and wisteria cover the landscape and the trees break more fully into their new spring attire, and the lawns become a deeper shade of green again.

I love spring in any place I’ve lived, but here, it is even more beautiful than I ever could have guessed, and I am trying to soak it all in. How is it that I have been so blessed to live in so many beautiful places?

Wishing for Christmas Snow

It is December. I’m playing my favorite songs and hoping to hear the Messiah once again.

A year ago found Scott and I trudging through fresh snow out on the mountains, looking for a little tree. Our first little tree to bring home and decorate and make pretty in our funny little green home.

I felt so guilty cutting it down- such a little, beautiful tree. But there were so many others around it that it may never have lived to be big and still beautiful, and hanging little lights and wooden ornaments of the nativity, given from a far away friend, and ribbons and tiny little snowflakes made it look festive indeed.

Little did we know that our first Christmas there would be our last, and now I look back and wonder, will my Christmases be white in this corner of the world?

I’m not counting on it. Not with it being warm enough for a t-shirt and sandals on Thanksgiving day, and not with the little creek that was created recently behind our house still unfrozen as can be.

The fact is, half of me is unconvinced that I will even miss the snow. And truthfully, I probably won’t miss it so very much.

Yet, with nearly all my memories wrapped up in those white Christmases of my past, it is hard to imagine Christmas with out snow, and secretly, I’m still dreaming of a white Christmas. Not just like the ones I use to know, for help us if these poor southern born and raised folks had to figure out how to drive in that much snow overnight, but I’d be content with just a little bit of snow. Enough to make my world white for a week or maybe two.

Enough to make my little Christmas dream come true.

In the mean time, I put snowflakes on my blog (thanks to seeing that it was snowing literally and virtually at the little pink house!) to make it feel a little more like the Christmases I’ve known.

And while I’m waiting for that snow, counting the days until company arrives (My parents and maybe just maybe Mr & Mrs Arcfide!) and writing my christmas cards and watching the mailbox for the second (the first one just arrived from a beautiful new Mrs D, and made my whole weekend) card of the season, I’m counting joys, and randomly pondering whether or not I should move or unpack these Christmas boxes now or later…when we get that Christmas Snow.

Of course, in my heart, I know, too that seasons change and White Christmases don’t need snow to still be the kind of white I always knew. And I’m glad for that. But, white in spirit or white in reality, I think I’ll keep dreaming of White Christmases and of my biggest wish come true: spending these days once again with the man I love.

A Season’s Grand Finale

Spring was breath taking in the continually changing colors of countless flowers and new green. Summer was full of sunshine, of refreshing thunderstorms, of heat and humidity, and bountiful gardens and lasted longer than usual.

Hardly before I’ve realized its happened, it’s been seven months and counting since we pulled in to my brother’s drive after our long, long 2300 mile journey from there to here. Spring time was just springing then.

And yet, it was all so familiar its taken until now to realize that this isn’t some odd, extended vacation. Roots pulled up want to dig in a little. The North Western in me struggles to adjust to the changes and the miles sometimes, but my heart says that this could be home sweet home. I guess we’ll wait and see.

But here we are, in a new place, experiencing the first real fall that I remember. And I am absolutely in love with the colors. They are glorious. Breath taking. I can’t get over them. And probably never will.

Sirens

I really don’t have a clue why, but sometimes my dreams are stuck in WWII.

I’ve dreamed vividly of sights and scenes painted in my history books, made quirky and odd because dreams just do that. I’ve dreamed of wartime nights when thunderstorms translated into bombs dropping in my dreamland and made me leap out of bed (only to sheepishly crawl back in).

Needless to say, when I woke up this morning to something my silly brain could only explain as an air raid siren, I had to make sure it wasn’t another silly dream. It wasn’t.

We’d gone to sleep with a mild storm that increased into something pretty crazy by the middle of the night. Apparently sirens around here are warnings to take cover, because tornadoes are in the area.

Now, I’m pretty much a North West country girl, and while there was a tornado warning once near my home in Colorado Rocky Mountain Highlands (very odd), it wasn’t the same thing and there weren’t any sirens anywhere to go off anyways.

Plus, waking up from sleep, tornado wasn’t exactly on my mind, but fire didn’t make sense and obviously there’s no need for air raid sirens. Scott finally woke up, and said “Tornado? They have tornadoes around here, don’t they?” When you’ve grown up in Alaska, it does pay off to be married to a partly Texas raised guy.

So… uncertain what exactly was going on, I grabbed my laptop and pulled up the weather. Sure enough- tornado (not yet touched down) sighted by doppler less than 6 miles away. Eventually the siren ceased to wail and since it was moving away, we stayed put.

I don’t think it ever touched down, and at least now I know how people know if they are asleep if there’s a tornado and they ought to go somewhere safe. And next time, that siren probably won’t give me such an initial adrenalin high, wondering what in the world it is.

It did get me thinking about safety, of hiding places and being prepared. Unfortunately for us, the safest spot is under our rental- with plenty of spiders and crickets and dirt. It isn’t made for hiding out in, but it’d do. I just really hope we never have to use it.

Our Squirrel Neighbor

I love animals. All sorts of animals. Their antics and the fact that they all seem to have personality fascinate me. I like bugs, too, but that’s a different topic.

It’s probably a result of growing up hearing and reading Sam Campbell’s Nature Adventure Series, but I’ve always wanted and wished that I could have wildlife as pets, right along with my cats and dogs and domestic rodents of all sorts. I’ve rescued birds and rabbits and any other injured creature that crossed my path, and touching a wild animal, and helping it to live again is an experience that has meant a lot to me over the years.

Then too, I’ve wanted pet porcupines, and skunks, and especially squirrels.

There’s a squirrel who lives in our back yard. It’s just an ordinary gray squirrel with a bushy tail and a typical saucy nature. Scott and I named him Filbert (or Hubert- we can’t decide just yet) Nutkin and he is as crazy as any other squirrel.

He has a highway of his own through the trees, and I really don’t think it’s often that he has to come down to the ground to get where he wants to go. He races back and forth, and we’ve seen him carry mushrooms from the branches (was he collecting them after putting them their to dry? I can’t tell) and horde the nuts that are everywhere right now as fast as he can.

Every once in a while he gets chased by ravens, and then he chases the ravens when they start nosing around in the leaves too much. He runs across the roof sometimes, and his tiny feet sound like miniature people running back and forth.

And every so often, when life must not be quite exciting enough, he positions himself on a branch hanging over into the nearest neighbors’ back yard, and waits for their little dog to notice him. Then he sits there, above the dog’s head and out reach, moving from time to time just a little, apparently to keep the dog’s attention on him, and lets the dog bark at him for what sometimes feels like hours.

From what I can tell, there is no reason whatsoever for his behavior, for when he tires of that, back up the trees he goes, and continues on with whatever duties squirrels have.

I love watching him. Seeing what he does and the way he acts as if he knows more than he probably does. He might not really be a pet, and probably is a pest, but I feel thankful that he chose the back yard for a place to spend so much time so that I can laugh, and wish all over again that I could have him for a wild pet.

To Summer

There’s a chill in the air that wasn’t there before. The rain drops that have fallen more than not this weekend were the closing of one season, the beginning of another.

So here’s to summer. A summer full of beauty, of growth, of uncertainty, of His faithfulness.

It hasn’t been an easy summer in so many ways, but it’s been a good summer. One I will remember with thankfulness for the ways that He provided, that He blessed, that He guided, the ways He chose to gently remind us that He does all things well.

And here’s to Autumn. My first time to experience Autumn as a a season, rather than a short and sad interlude to a long and cold winter. I’m looking forward to it, and to next Summer, when the flowers bloom yet again.

[five minute friday] loud

splash of color

its cold outside

Tropical Storms and Hot Drinks

Beautiful Tennessee Spring

Wishing for Christmas Snow

A Season’s Grand Finale

Sirens

Our Squirrel Neighbor

To Summer

Forever Love

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