Woo – Whee!

Many days I wonder if I’ll ever slow down and settle in – mostly when I’ve been writing about the three years before I arrived here at the ranch.

As I prepare to fly to Austin, Texas I say goodbye to the garden. Even though I’ll be away only a week, the end of the season is quickly approaching. Here days are shortening, nights and early mornings are cooling. The gelding and the steer are fluffing up with extra hair and the flowers seem desperate to soak in the sunshine while it lasts.

In Texas we’ll have almost three years to catch up on, so I expect to be road weary upon return. And then there’s that emotional roller coaster after another series of “see ya later” (we avoid saying “goodbye”). Perhaps after returning I’ll have a new perspective I’d missed before. And maybe by then I’ll have an even better grasp of why I must be so far from the rest of my heart again.

Though I can hardly wait to get there, thinking about the journey that brought me here seems appropriate.

From October 13, 2016:

Whew!

​

After a 28 hour turn-around for Cole, fifteen hours for me, I’m home. In my own cottage on my brother-from-another-mother‘s ranch.

No internet in my cottage yet, no TV or even radio and I have a whopping 2G cell service – from the middle of the north pasture when I visit the cattle and the mare. It’s really not all that bad…

 

Today.

While I’m still buried in boxes.

Once I unpack and set up I’ll shop for better options. For now I’ll take my time and catch up with me – it’s been a long, hard three years.

  

Try to not miss me too much. ❤

“The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” Psalm 37:23, 24 (NIV)

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In The Zone

“You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of Sight and Sound but of Mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”*

*

Working without Wi-Fi or an internet connection in my new home often feels like I actually stepped out of the truck into the Twilight Zone. Things that I once used and rarely noticed before, essentially took for granted, are not available now and I must hourly or daily readjust my movements in their absence.

For instance, we have basic satellite television service, but no DVR. When I settled in to relax a minute with Erin on the first evening here, not pressing a couple of buttons to view my recorded shows we missed while on the road was a shock. The cable network now determines when we see our preferred programming. And without internet access we can’t log on and live stream. Simply shocking.

Every few minutes I grab one of my cell devices or open my laptop and almost immediately Vision blurs, my ears detect the slightest ringing and eerie distant music, and I initially feel light-headed. In nanoseconds I must adjust to the feel of actual paper, reference books and that landline handset for reference.

Even after I remember I can go to the library that’s a good stretch of the legs away to reconnect with cyberspace and the blogosphere, the world around me seems to move slower and slower while I gather my bag to leave.

Now, two weeks since I left Texas, we are still reorganizing and juggling everyday items to fit our combined 50 pounds of stuff into our 20 pound sized home. What I once considered necessities have taken on whole new definitions while I utilize actual antiques in the kitchen and bathroom for the time being, but mostly for the challenge.

Used to glass shower doors, I won’t soon forget the sensation of a shower curtain billowing against my ankles for the first time in decades. Eeek!

However, I am amazed at how quickly I adjust to heating water in a teakettle rather than the microwave, making coffee in a French press rather than the Keurig. More astounding, I actually put oil and kernels in a pot (matching the lid first) and shaking it over a gas flame to make popcorn. And, oh the delight of melting and then drizzling butter – bomb diggity!

Sure I’d like to open the cupboard and see my dishes that have been familiar for years, or see my cosmetics in the medicine chest. On the other hand, I can practically feel the presence of my things, safely stored in the garage until we make space for them – and may actually need them. They seem to call to me every few hours, “don’t forget me…”

 

<em>”… the world that was, and the world that is, or the world that will be… In the Twilight Zone.”</em>*

“…but we have this treasure in Earthen vessels, that the Excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” 2 Corinthians 4:15 (NKJ)

 

*, **Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone TV series 1959 – 64, images courtesy photobucket.com bucket.com