This post’s photos take us back in time to when the crew and I roamed across Utah. We camped by the Green River near the town of the same name. (Photos don’t match the text and aren’t always in correct sequence).
Wednesday, December 5, at home in Arizona
Reggie and Roger play their games on the bed. Reggie stands on his back legs and pounces with front legs (arms?) outstretched, claws extended. Roger counter-attacks with a “bite” to Reggie’s flank and a high-pitched whine that seems to say, “You are NOT the boss of me!”
Suddenly Roger stops.
He sounds an alarm and flies off the bed, barking and racing down the hall to the back door thar leads to the patio and the back yard. Reggie and I follow to see what’s the matter.
“Oh, Dennis is here!”
Dennis is the privacy fence installation guy and a friend.
“Hi, Susan,” he begins with his usual warm smile. (Dennis prefers to use the name Susan, rather than Sue. That’s fine with me. In fact, most of my life I’ve been a Susan and several people I know still call me by that name.)
“I’m on my lunch break. I need to check on what materials we need to finish up the job.”
After Dennis takes inventory and checks a few changes we made to our plan, he asks me about stain and I make a decision. I’m not confident it’s the right one, but I can’t dither forever. (More about the stain in a future post once it has been applied.)
Dennis gives me an invoice.
The total cost of materials and labor is fair and reasonable. I’m not going to talk about the cost of having a privacy fence built around our backyard because, you know, there’s always a reader who has to point out something negative among the overwhelming number of positive comments from supportive readers.
Of course, the one negative pops into my consciousness more than the positives, and the negative tends to persist like smell rising from crap on a shoe.
I’d like to control that better!
Which reminds me . . . .
You know how you go to a website or write an email and then the next few days you receive messages “out of nowhere” on the same topic? Funny thing: I experience that in real life! Maybe you do, too. In fact, I’m pretty sure you do.
It’d be creepy if it weren’t so wonderful.
For instance, I’m thinking about the power of other people’s negativity over my thoughts and feelings. A common problem. Over the years, with the help of our loving God and some maturity, that power has weakened. Not completely gone, however. Not by a long shot.
Oh, how I wish it were!
Anyway . . .
I’m at the thrift store (again!).
I find a few pots for the plants I’m propagating — I purchase perfectly priced propagating plant pots! — and also a floor lamp.
It was just last night I said out loud to the living room, “What this corner needs is a floor lamp.”
Anyway . . . anyway . . .
I’m struggling this day to push out of mind some snark hurled my way at another website.
I browse the book section at the thrift shop, my eyes scanning the vast wasteland of battered books. (I read fiction on my Paperwhite. For reference books, I like the paper books.)
I come across “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale and a daily devotional by Billy Graham, “Hope For Each Day.”
I read both these books years ago.
I should take these home. It’s time to read them again.
I reach out and put the two books in my basket.
As I breeze on home, my thoughts flow around the plant pots, the floor lamp, and the two books.
Those two books . . .
Unlike the phony, targeted messages transmitted to me on the internet, I’m convinced the prompting I was given at the thrift shop is from a personal and sincere voice pointing me toward what I really need.
Again.
Pretty neat, eh?
rvsue
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