catching up ...

You know you are really tired when you are too tired to take a vacation!

A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me to go with her to her cabin in the Branson area this weekend. Now that I am back to actually getting Fridays off (working “just” a 4x10 work week), she was taking Good Friday off as well and the plan was to drive over Thursday evening/night and come back this (Sunday) afternoon. A “get away” sounded great. Except that I was passing the point of “being tired” and nearing the point of exhaustion. After last weekend being more “full” than anticipated, I realized that as appealing as the idea of “getting away” for a few days was, the thought of the 5-6 hour drive to get there – and another one to get back – was just NOT appealing at all. What I needed and wanted more was some rest and some “down” time with the Lord. Fortunately, she understood.

So, I “took the weekend off” – well mostly. I “slept in” on Friday. I then ran errands and (finally!) did my taxes. On Saturday, other than doing laundry and a little “picking up” around the house, I took the day off. I curled up in my favorite chair and read and spent time with the Lord regaining focus. (If you want to see part of that, check out my “Who is Laurie?” post on my Life’s Simple Truths blogsite.) I never even left the house yesterday. I believe that is the first time that has happened since I have been in my new home.

Today, of course, I drove to Ark City for church. Afterwards, having no one with whom to celebrate a meal on this Resurrection Sunday, I decided to treat myself to something nice. I ended up at Red Lobster for their lobster fest. (Floridians, don’t make fun of me. It’s the only seafood restaurant in town.) I almost passed up my planned treat of some sort of lobster because they actually had Gulf Coast Snapper as one of the “fresh” fish of the day. (Floridians, hold down the laughter! It WAS fresh SOME day. And it is unusual for them to have it on the menu. You can’t just take it for granted here that snapper is readily available!) But, given that the lobster fest ends in a week, I stuck with my original plan – and splurged. I got the patter with TWO lobster tails – one Rock and one Maine. It’s not as good as a Florida lobster with the crabmeat stuffing (nor were the two tails as large as one Florida lobster would have been) … but for a Kansas meal, it was pretty good! And, since I was in the mood to celebrate and splurge, I topped it off with some key lime pie. I enjoyed it – thought of my Florida friends & relatives – and missed Mom who always liked going to Red Lobster as well. It’s hard to believe it was a year ago this weekend that I was returning from her funeral in Tallahassee and trying to regain focus on work.

Next weekend I will be “back on the trail.” It will be our fourth and final (for this round) prayer journey. I did not post about the third one, two weeks ago. It was to the SE quadrant and was very good. This one will be to the SW quadrant. We are starting in Dodge City, going from there to Garden City, and then, I believe, following the river up to the border of Colorado. It’s about 170 miles from where I live to Dodge City, then another 50 or so to Garden City. I am not sure of the route we will take from there to the border, but that’s probably another 60-70 miles. Add it up, and that’s nearly 300 by the time we reach “the end of the line” – and get to turn around and drive back. NOW you know why the 300 miles over to Branson (actually south of Branson) this weekend didn’t sound appealing.

Between the four prayer journeys and the conference in Ark City last weekend, my weekends have been full. Weekend after next (the first weekend in April), we will be having the InSync2 conference here in Wichita. It is just Sunday evening & Monday morning, so that won’t take the whole weekend – really just Sunday & Monday (setting up & tearing down before and after the two sessions). I am looking forward to it.

The following weekend, I am supposed to go to the St. Louis area for a wedding. I haven’t made reservations yet, because I am not yet sure if I will make it. Unless I get more rest, eight hours of drive time each way just isn’t sounding like something I will do, unless someone wants to go with me.

The next weekend was SUPPOSED to be my open house party for my new place. Not so! With all the going, the unpacking has not happened. However, with coming to the end of the series of weekends away AND the end of the class I have been taking, maybe by mid-April I can refocus on the unpacking and settling in and make some headway on it.

Even without being settled, I LOVE my new place. This is one time that I can say God truly gave me the desire of my heart. I had seen these patio homes when they were being built 8-10 years ago. I realized when I was packing to move I still had the brochure I picked up when Mom & I looked at the model home. THAT’S how much I liked them. She liked them too, they just didn’t seem “doable” for us at the time. After I moved, I began regretting that I had not bought one then and moved her here. I finally realized (just in the last week or so), that if I had done that, we would not have been able to take the wonderful trips we took together. Nor would I have been able to easily run home each day at noon to get her lunch and check on her. Or to pick her up and get her to doctor appointments as easily as I could where we were. All in all, I realized that 5316 Stoneborough Court was the place for “us.” This is now the place for “me.” But I do have a wonderful guest “suite” … so do come visit!

As for my house on Stoneborough Court, no, it has not sold yet. Contrary to all you hear on the national news, the market here is good. In fact, there have been articles in the papers and items on the local news about how our good economy & housing market defy the national trends. Hopefully, with the weather warming some, people will be out looking. I stopped by to check it this afternoon and one of my neighbors there told me that he had seen several people stop recently and walk around the outside looking at it. Hopefully, that is good news and it will sell soon.

Well … I want to get back into some more reading and quiet time before the evening is over and this is too long already. I’ll post more after next weekend’s trip.

Blessings!