A New Month

“Slayer of the winter, art thou here again?
O welcome, thou that bring'st the summer nigh!
The bitter wind makes not the victory vain.
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.”

William Morris

March holds the promise that winter's days are numbered:)
This photograph was taken last March along the Slippery Rock Creek in western Pa.:)

Blog Update/Retirement

I have an update to my last post. I am retiring February 28th. Change is one of my least favorite things to go through, but the time is right to say goodbye to my "Cardland Career":) I've worked with these two ladies in the above photo the entire 7 & 1/2 years. Yvonne, as manager, Toni, as my co-worker & our engineering expert:) Love these girls:) Yvonne is retiring the 28th as well, which she's been planning for a while, even dreaming of for as long as I've known her:) She's leaving to move to Lake Norman to be near her grands:) So her leaving nudged me to make my decision:)

This is one of our special events with two more dear co-workers & friends, Rose & Jane:) Rose was our assistant manager for a short time, then left to manage the Hallmark store at Cary Towne Center. Jane is the Tigger of our group--our sunshine gal that brightened our lives every workday. She was our assistant manager until October when she left to return to family life & anticipate grandmotherhood!

Teresa, Kristi, & Shirley, three more wonderful co-workers:)

Last Sunday evening, February 17th, a number of us who have worked together through the years at Beaver Creek congregated at Brenda C.'s home to celebrate Yvonne's retirement & to show how much we've appreciated her:) We've truly enjoyed working with one another & for Yvonne:) I've been blessed over & over to work with so many nice, unique, & gifted ladies. I will miss y'all:)

What Will 2013 Bring?

January of a new year is drawing to a close, so quickly! Last year I had lung surgery & Keith had a quadruple bypass surgery. This year I'm nursing a bad knee. My left knee, suffering with a torn meniscus & arthritis, is defining my daily activities. I have yet to return to an eight hour workday at my part time job because of pain. This week I discussed my health issues with my family doctor. She says my diabetes is my most important concern-since I can't walk 3 miles a day my sugar levels have risen far too high-that I need to call my orthopedic doctor to find out how soon it will be till I can return to walking, or consider arthroscopic surgery. (Amazingly, miraculously, I hadn't gained weight while resting the knee over the holidays!) Also, I had been pondering whether to quit my job. My wonderful manager is retiring & moving to Charlotte. My dear co-worker & assistant manager, Jane, quit in October to become a grandmother/babysitter for a grandchild. The knee has been one more reason to get serious about it. It may be time. I feeling more & more there are other things to concentrate on at this point in my life. Will keep you posted.

Wintertime

“When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.”

Alice Hoffman - Here on Earth

Alice here describes winter so beautifully. I feel I'm in the midst of the gray & colorless chilly days of the year. Yet this morning we saw above snow-blanketed Pittsburgh a brilliant red-orange sunrise, then sapphire colored mountains through West Virginia. What a reminder to me winter isn't always drab & dull:)

Christmas has passed. Today is New Year's Eve. I'm facing another possible surgery in the beginning of the new year (as I was doing this time last year!)?

What's in store for 2013? Time will tell.

But I know God is guiding & leading me so I will strive to keep my eyes on Him.

Blessings to all:)

Thanksgiving

From C.S. Lewis:

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . .

If it were possible for a created soul fully . . . to 'appreciate', that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude. . . . To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God - drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.

The Calm Before The Storm

Today is a chilly Saturday--too cold to think about leaf raking or biking. And I'm feeling quite unmotivated.

After posting on FB that I was looking into buying a treadmill, my cousin sent over, via hubby Max, an exercise machine she no longer used. Knowing Max would be here by 10 am I slept in til 7:45, walked Wyatt & vacuumed & mopped the kitchen.
This machine is a flex 'something or other'. I'm not sure it's what I want but, since Beth was so gracious, I will try it:)
Max is such a friendly fella:) We always enjoy seeing him so we visited for a while.

After getting a few birthday cards in the mail & folding a small load of clothes, I decided to enter Keith's mom's Thanksgiving recipes into my computer--wonderful recipes I don't want to lose, like how she cooks a turkey & her wonderful potato salad dressing & many others:) Mom was a great cook & she misses it now that's she lives in a tiny studio apartment:)

Keith began working on our Christmas letter. I wasn't sure I wanted to send cards/a letter this year, but in the last week or two have changed my mind. Figured with the letter written & printed before Thanksgiving, along with paring down the address list, I could get them out without too much worry.

I asked Keith earlier if he'd be interested in actually going to see a movie this evening! We never go to a theater, relying on our Netflix movies, but I'd like to see the new James Bond movie, Skyefall, on the big screen! Keith's pondering it. Duke, State, & Wake Forest all play football at 3:30, so we may watch one of those while he's still considering...

After Thanksgiving I'm going to wish I had this calm "day off before the holidays" back! I'll have to get in high gear to get everything accomplished that I'd like to have done. (My work schedule will go to 5 days a week beginning in December) I've been begging for a Christmas list from my kids, but they aren't really motivated yet:)
Keith just handed me the addresses to sort through so, better get busy:)!

PS. Decided at the last minute to see the movie Argo--a good movie, a great true story of rescue.

An October Saturday

Blog, I have abandoned you lately. So here's a short note:)

Today I'm loving our mild fall-like weather in central NC:) Slept in. Walked Wyatt along Shepherd's Vineyard's leaf strewn green way. For breakfast had Harvest Loaf pumpkin bread with a cup of hot coffee. Then vacuumed, dusted & washed clothes.
Now am watching the Wake Forest/UVA football game. 

Keith blew mounds of leaves earlier, between computer blitzes. 

Nice to have a day without plans once in a while:) 

If I can't be in the mountains, then give me a laid back Saturday watching football, baseball, or basketball:) And now & then a bike ride:)