April Ponderings

Here it is, Sunday, April 7th.
I no longer work part time, I no longer work (away from home):P
I've retired & and am working on recuperating...
I've spent two & a half weeks recovering from arthroscopic surgery & tomorrow is my post operation appointment with Dr. Boes. My big push to have surgery, after suffering a torn meniscus in Dec., was to return to walking an hour a day to stave off the diabetes nipping at my heels:/

My well worn couch has become my friend & my enemy; I need it, but am tired of it:/ I've lived there for a while. Even now the aching knee needs to be elevated often.
I haven't slept well since--two or three pillows placed here & there, tossing & turning to get comfy, 2 Tylenol & wishing before morning I had more--you get the idea.
Physical therapy is probably a given after tomorrow so am hopeful that will strengthen the joint muscles & relieve the pain.

But now I'm looking ahead, & what will I do with this time the Lord has given me. Definitely walking if all goes well, & what else....facing a different season in my life:/

Every day I'm looking through a new window:)

Love

Abide With Me

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see—
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

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.