the Best Is Yet to Come

Just think.  As hope and freedom dim in our beloved country, God’s Word will shine brighter and brighter, offering the only true hope and freedom to people in bondage to sin.  That, my friends, warms me more than a fine spring day. 

So the best is yet to come.  Always.  But the past has been good, too, and I’ll try to recapture some of the highlights. 

First order of business is the trip to Florida.  There isn’t much to say about it, except it was a complete surprise for Grandpa Thompson—Mark was able to walk into the house, get out his camera, and capture the look of utter surprise on his father’s face.  I can’t find my cable to put that picture on the blog, but when Bradford visited our former neighbor, he immediately made himself at home… on the top of her door?!  Her house was exactly like mine, and the boys used to love to climb up on this weird shelf-like place above the front door.   It was the bane of my life when it came time to dust, so I ended up dusting it about once a year.  Hopefully my neighbor made Bradford dust when he was up there.  Here’s the picture she posted on Facebook.

 

Next was my day off.  It was raining, which ruled out any outdoor pursuits.  I ended up doing some shopping, going to an Active Isolated Stretching therapist, eating lunch and spending time with a good friend, and buying new running shoes.  It had been over two years since my last pair, and it was time for new ones.  The trip to the store in Sandy Springs was against traffic and lovely, but the way home was fraught with too many vehicles for my taste, so I turned into Atlanta and spent a fun forty-five minutes drooling over IKEA displays.  I ended up buying a mirror for the girls’ room, magazine holders for Ben, and a tool kit for Bradford.

And I’m running the trails again.  Not the ones far from people and help should I get hurt, but the one that is adjacent to the gravel walking path.  It’s the compromise I worked out with Mark, because if I were to hurt myself on this part of the trail system, I really could call for help and be heard.  As I was running yesterday though, I wondered for a moment if even this was a good idea.  I think it was the moment I was jumping over a snake in the path because I hadn’t noticed it sooner.  We’ll say it’s because I’m so fast rather than oblivious.  Yeah.  That’s it.  But it freaked me out, even though I’m not afraid of snakes in theory, and even though it didn’t move, so when I went back I equipped myself with a stick somewhat reminiscent of reindeer antlers and four-feet long.  Unfortunately, I could only remember that the snake was on a flatish place near a tree.  And then I started jumping at all the roots in the trail, but there was no need for any of the drama, because the poor, harmless thing was dead—head smashed and belly up.  My good deed for the day was removing it (I had the perfect stick for the job) from the trail.

Two more things, and I promise to be quick.  Last weekend we put together our Test Garden. Mark built the frame, we got lake dirt from a place out Hwy 20, and planted the seeds and tomato plants all without incident, but getting my father’s truck out of our backyard—now that was an adventure.  For awhile I thought his bright blue Ford would become a permanent feature of our backyard, but Bradford had the good idea to use a wench to pull the truck to where we could then drive it out.  It was working okay, but my father came with a better wench and although we may have killed a tree in the process, the truck is gone.  Now we’re wondering what to do with the anthill that has popped up in the middle of the radishes, and what to do about the bunny that comes in the evenings to stare at our seedlings. 

And yesterday we dealt with a Dead Battery on Monster, and the boys sold Brusters ice cream coupon booklets.  They were easy sells—about a 40% success rate overall, and the boys had a good time going around with “their baby” to sell.  Bradford wins the prize for boldness, for not only did he sell one to the mailman, telling him it was a hot day and he needed to get some ice cream on his way home, but also for attempting to sell a coupon book to the Ice Cream Man.  I think that conversation went something like “do you want to buy an ice cream coupon book?” “No. Do you want to buy some ice cream?”  “No.”  Well, you never know until you ask, right? 

Now my girls are wanting me to read a book of poetry to them, and when Mark comes home he’ll want me to put them to bed, so until I write again, good-bye.