Gravel Road Musings

Now is that long (or maybe it won't be long) depressing post that was scheduled for a few days ago and never happened.  If you don't feel like listening to something of a small rant, I suggest you click the little x box up in the upper right corner of your screen and ignore me. I am not depressed--let me say that straight out.  I may tend to frustration and discouragement, but not depression.  This all started 7 days ago exactly when I talked to 4 different people with 4 different kinds of problems.  It all came down to 2 categories--two very, very familiar categories. The first category is this: family problems and depression.  I lump the two together because I think that family issues tend to lead to depression at some point whether people admit it or not.  Think about it:  if you don't have a good family relationship to fall back on, life is going to be so much tougher to face.  It's sad how many good "plain" homes are corrupted with family...

I had my Thanksgiving post somewhat formulated in my head.  It was the post in which the Eeyore in me was going to come out in a very depressing post purposely posted on Thanksgiving day.  That post is still in my head, but the day has passed and I didn't take the time to get it out on the computer screen. So instead, I will focus on a little happier things in life.  I am happy because my mom came down yesterday and we shot off to town on a lark and bought material and came home and made 4 purses.  They are quite cute if I must say so myself.  She left around 10 this morning; I finished the purses and then went hunting with D.  That was many hours in a tree stand, but I looked at the Black Friday ads, read, and we played some Rook, so it was some quality and quiet together time. Tonight, I finished up some Birthday gifts; I'd go into more detail, but one never knows who reads this anymore and I can't risk my secrets being discovered by the wrong person....

It's melancholy me returning to my blog.  I have another happy post--a picture of the last completed project. I finished it last week, took a picture of it and life has moved on at a crazy pace since then. Death seems to come in groups.  Four more people that I knew of have passed away; only one in what you could call a timely death.  (Meaning he was old enough that it doesn't surprise you) The one that has touched me most deeply has been D's first cousin, Ruth Leatherman.  She was 31 years old and died in her sleep.  How do you reconcile that?  People that young do NOT die in their sleep.  She was athletic, had just run a marathon 2 weeks before that.  How does your heart just not keep doing its normal thing?  Why does it choose to stop functioning correctly?  She left behind a husband and 3 small children.  You want to cry out and say, God, why?  But as her mother said, "God must have needed her more."  That's the on...

After the last sad and more dreary post, I decided it was time to post some happy things in life:  Going on dates with D.  I think it can be as nice now as when we were dating because going on a date now means I don't have to cook.  And yes, I like D for other reasons than that too, but I don't do gush and mush on the world wide web.  My very tiny fall decor.  And I have no idea what those darkish spots are on the green.  I didn't realize there were any there in real life, but there could be.  My washer has a tendency to make things dirty when washing with just such spots.  I think I might have helped the situation some, but don't know.  Coffee and Pull-Apart Pumpkin Bread (not pictured) with friends.  It was a lovely day that day.  Coffee with friends in the morning and a girls' club staff meeting in the evening.  A very abnormal Saturday for me in that I pretty much did nothing, but wait--that's kind of what I d...

Now there's a somber title, but it kind of describes how I'm feeling about life right now.  Now there's an oxymoron too. Death vs Life: we take life so much for granted until something happens and death stalks our door.  Then we are extremely grateful for the life we have been given and well we should be.  But how do you prepare yourself for the inevitability of death or can you?  Must it always come as a surprise and wallop you on the side of the head and while you are groping and grasping for meaning to this untimely death, another one comes and wallops you on the other side. That's a little of how I have been feeling these last two and a half weeks: a little walloped on all sides.  Since Tuesday, August 28, 2012, six people have died.  The last two are not people I have known real well, but they were patients at the clinic.  All six of these people died an untimely death--it doesn't seem fair, it doesn't seem right, but yet I know God has a plan...

Has anyone noticed that I am very generic on my titles?  Very generic!!!!  I can never come up with a cute little title that begs for the article to be read.  There are probably several reasons for this: a. the article isn't begging to be read or not even worth the time required to read it b. naming things isn't my forte (our poor kids, if we ever have any) c. I tend to ramble on posts so that a title would have to be long-winded and an article in and of itself to capture the full essence of the post. Some days, I long to sit down and write long, sophisticated posts that are full of mental wanderings and ponderings and leave everyone walking away or clicking away going--Wow!!  She really made me think. Other days, I want to sit down and type out a post that will leave your sides aching from laughter. Most days, I manage to skip blogging altogether. A few days, I sit down and just blog about whatever I think about that is appropriate to put on a computer sc...

So, I really left this blog in an annoying and disturbed state of mind.  I am healthy again and have been for nearly a month.  Wow, I never realized how good it is to feel good.  I guess it's clear proof that sometimes you never know what you had until it's missing. So, for the last several weeks, I have been studying the Proverbs 31 woman, using the course outlined here . I have really been enjoying it.  I don't know if all the descriptions is really how it was for this lady, but I do know it has really helped me to feel like I could maybe attain to some form of virtue.  I did tell D this morning though, that sometimes I feel like the only thing I have in common with this lady is the fact of hunting for good deals.  (She gathers her food from afar was given to mean, she went the distance to buy good, wholesome, and cheaper food than buying it at the corner store.)  But as I sit here on the couch, there are dishes piled on the counter that didn't get...