Mid-Week random ramble 002

1. Upon feeding some fish-food pellets to carp at a local attraction, Claire announced that her hands smelled like fish. I had an uneasy feeling that feeding fish to fish was somehow wrong. Until an old fishing buddy reminded me that in nature big fish eat smaller fish and so on and so on.

2. Why is it that as soon as we begin to understand relationships in our own middle aged lives, we are confronted by the relationships between our children and their friends as something foreign and confusing and misunderstood? Do we ever truly learn?

3. Sitting on the beach watching the lake and other families around me makes me smile and wonder about happiness. As a bystander to other people’s lives, I often see fullness and fun and good, and I find myself envying what others appear to have. Does my own life look that way to others? Is my life enviable?

4. Mosquito bites, once scratched and bothered with, can take a very long time to heal.

5. Dogs would much rather sleep with the pack than in their own little beds. It’s harder to sleep with a dog than you might think. Dog hairs wash out simply enough in the washing machine. Dog love is harder to remove.

6. Summer camp is a place of miracles. I gave my life to God at Mount Forest Camp in Ontario. I was 7. I didn’t really know what that meant until I was almost 40. I used to place God in a box. I now find God in words, music, art, creation, relationships. I first met God there, but I didn’t recognize him.

7. A sleepy dog at my feet is one of my happy places. A sleepy dog at my feet while I am writing is another.

8. My entire family loves to take photos… all of our kids have prioritized saving and spending their money on cameras. I am the only one in the family without my own camera, and that’s OK. I get to borrow all of their wonderful photos whenever I want to, and I sometimes even get to use their cameras. When I see the results of an eye for beauty… it takes my breath away. Thank you God for the beauty of this world and the eyes to see it.

9. Attending Saturday night church brings new meaning to “A day of rest”… being the Sunday following. Today I have stayed late in bed stroking the dog and looking out my window at the beauty of this place, taken the dog for a nice long bike ride (dog running beside, not on, the bike) drank coffee on the porch while Bob read the paper, enjoyed looking at photos from Bob and Malcolm’s early morning water ski, supervised Claire and her friends play time and chatter in our pool, wrote a poem, thought long on, ‘Be Still and Know that I am God’, and worked ahead on my blogging. I feel at peace. I feel at rest.

10. I have discovered a new past-time for Claire and I… called Artist’s Trading Cards… apparently it’s a movement… not that we are looking for one, but the little cards are so cute and relatively simple to be creative with. I’m going to use them as combination poem and art cards… Claire is going to make some custom cards for her Grandma… and we can do it together. Will have to investigate the larger context and potential of ATC’s, but for now it’s just about sitting at the kitchen counter with paints out having some fun.

Peace, out!

Lesley-Anne