Well, I have been relaxing. Mel, on the other hand, is never relaxed the Saturday before he preaches. His mind is constantly going, mulling over this and that. He reads. He studies. He mulls. It's actually a beautiful process to watch and listen to. I like that he talks so much to me while he is in process, verbalizing things, sometimes asking my opinion, sometimes sharing something with me that he's learned that never makes it into his sermon.
I realize while I'm writing this just how much I like being the age I am right now. The kids are grown and gone. We have the flat to ourselves, the fish and the cat (oh- and of course the ants, too).
I've almost always enjoyed being the age I am at that time. Except being a teenager - I can't say that I really enjoyed being a teenager. But I enjoyed being a young 20's, being a newlywed, then a young mother. I enjoyed watching my kids grow up. I did not enjoy so much watching them leave home, yet at the same time, it was very good to watch them go. Now I enjoy being a grandmother, tho I wish it was not from afar. I'm glad, yes I am really, truly glad, that it is Mel and me alone right now. I enjoy each stage of my life. Besides, I may end up living with one or more of my kids again some day in the future and they can take care of me. {hear an evilish laugh! heh heh heh}
As I write those words above I am somewhat nervous because I have this nagging suspicion or fear that if I verbalize my pleasure in something, God will change it somehow. Bad way to think, I know, I know. Yet, there is a certain amount of fear that when I enjoy something or someone an awful lot, God will remove it/them so that I concentrate on Him instead. I don't know why I think this way about people. I do know why I think about things and places that way: because God has done just that many times in my life. Removed the thing, moved me, or whatever. It has never been easy for me, but He does it anyway. The good news is that each time, it's just a tiny bit easier to 'let it go.'
Why am I thinking along these lines this evening? Probably due to the sermon that Mel and I just listened to. It was from Hebrews 11 on Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac to the Lord.
I am so glad I found these sermons by Arturo Azurdia. I think I found them by way of Rebecca Writes. From there I went to Monergism, where Azurdia's sermons/website are listed, along with a whole lot of other things if you go exploring. I have listened to his whole series on Revelation, Mel is most of the way through Hebrews, and we've listened together to a variety of them.
My last goldfish died. I think I fed it too much. I gave it too much food one day by accident, the next day he/she was laying on the bottom of the pond. Two days Fishie laid there, only moving around when I forced the issue. The 3rd day, he/she was belly up.
Bummer. I MISS him/her!
Fishie was always happy to see me. I'd walk up to the pond and he/she'd swim right over to the edge and beg me for food. Fishie would swim right under Cheyenne's tongue as she drank out of the pond. Sometimes Cheyenne would watch him/her, but never once did she try to catch Fishie.
RIP Fishie.
I waited 3 or 4 days and then decided that the pond was very nice like it is - but... BUT it needed something more. So while I was in Nikolaev on the "adventure" last week, I bought a pretty pink plant. I repotted it and set it kind of behind the pond. Now the purple pond with the blue glass fountain that sits on a bright pink bucket with bright yellow lid has a dark pink plant sitting there behind and above it, planted in a white pot next to another dark green plant potted in a white pot. How's that for adding color to your life? I notice that there is no bright red. That's probably because I really do not care for bright red, or bright orange either, for that matter.
The plant is very nice, adds something to the area.
BUT it is not alive in the same way an alive creature is.
When Mel and I went shopping over at our local Oskar Thursday, I stopped in at the tiny little pet store beside it to see if they had any gold fish.
No gold fish, but they do have guppies and a couple other fish. I bought 3 guppies. They are kind of plain little things - no big bright beautiful and colorful tails. Just plain little guppies with so-so black and white tails. I carried them around Oskar in my cart, watching over them like a mother hen. Yes, of course! They were in a plastic bag!! :-)
We finished shopping and we brought them home. I took the rubber band off the top of the plastic bag and put the bag to float in the water to equalize the water temperatures and eventually to add a bit of pond water to the bag water until I could just dump them into the pond willy-nilly.
I came in and sat down at the computer. A couple minutes later we heard a fish jump. Oh ho! thinks I to myself. One of them has made it's way out of the bag, floating there on the water. I finished what I was doing on the computer and went out to check on the fishes.
I looked in the bag and there were only 2 fish. I looked all over the pond - no extra fish. Finally I looked over by the balcony door. They lay poor little guppy fish, all dried out and starting to curl.
I picked him up (it's a him) and saw that one of his gills moved very weakly. Life! I quickly put him into the pond. Within just a few minutes he was weakly swimming around. No, it's more like he was just kind of hanging there in the water, moving his gills a bit, but he was alive.
Oh my.
Yesterday I looked for my 3 guppies and could only find 1. I picked up the fountain to check and see if the one had died and gotten stuck against the filter. Immediately, one of them went shooting out from under the overhang and took a flying jump out of the pond and onto the rug in front of the balcony door. Good grief. These guys are easily spooked! I gently picked him up and dumped him back into the water.
He was very traumatized. Too much in too short of time. Poor little fish. I'm not sure he's going to make it. The first Flying Guppy died. I found him against the filter this morning (good news - second Flying Guppy did not shoot out of the pond this time when I picked up the fountain). I waited to pick it up until I was sure the one healthy guppy was looking at me, watching me. I talked gently to it - they can hear you, you know - and then picked it up and found poor dead guppy under there.
Such is the life of fish. I have one healthy, one not quite healthy and one dead guppy. It's hard to see them in the pond because they are gray and the pond is dark. I have to really search. But the blue fighting fish, Sargon, is still alive and doing well. Knock on wood, cross my eyes, er, whatever I'm supposed to do...
I miss my golden Fishie.
Thursday evening while I was listening to the sermon with Mel, I realized I was going to run out of the embroidery floss color I was using. I bought this as a kit 4 or 5 years ago so I can't just take it back and say, "Hey! I need more of this color floss! You goofed up on this one." Nope, I'm going to have to go searching to see if I can find this color here in Kherson. I searched all of my floss last night, going through the 3 floss containers and two bags that have floss with other stuff and none of the colors even came close to matching. I really hope I can find some before we go back to the States in November. If not, I will have to wait until we get home and then finish the project there. I'm taking the project home with me, one way or the other, because it is a gift for someone. I'd just hoped I'd have it completely done by then.
I continue to monitor earthquakes and sunspots. The sun is still spotless
Current Stretch: 42 days
2009 total: 184 days (79%)
Since 2004: 695 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
Updated 21 Aug 2009
There is a very interesting article today on spaceweather.com about disappearing sunspots.
As far as earthquakes, there have been 2 or 3 small ones in various parts of Colorado recently, plus a large one in eastern Colorado. This larger one happened in an area that has no previously recorded earthquakes. It was also quite near to where friends of our live (hi Marsha!). Unfortunately they were gone to Kansas and didn't feel it. I like earthquakes that do no damage - that's why I write 'unfortunately'.
We have another spider on the balcony. A nice little garden spider has built it's web between the clothesline wire and the grapevine. Two spiders, I guess, because there are two webs fairly close together. I don't know - do spiders build more than one web, or is it one web per spider? I'll have to look that up.
Anyway, I found it while I was hanging clothes out. So, I hung the clothes in such a way as to do the least amount of damage to the spider's web. Trying to make up for murdering that spider so many years ago, I guess. ha ha! But I'm glad they are there as they will catch and eat flies and mosquitoes. I don't think their webs are strong enough for the wasps, tho, that will be here as the grapes continue to ripen (they are mostly purple now!).
I have a couple of more things I want to write about, but they will be complete posts all by themselves. So for now, this is it.
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