The other day a moth got caught between the two windows here in the office. The little fortichka window was partially open and apparently it flew in and couldn't find it's way back through the little open slit. It was just a plain, drab brown moth.
Plain? Drab? Really? I've modified the photo to highlight this little guys true nature. Oh my! Just look at the beauty in those wings! I would love to be able to weave something even half that beautiful. God's creativity and artistic-ness (is that a word?) never cease to amaze me.
It flew around between the windows for awhile. I tried to shoo it out, but couldn't do it through the pane of glass between us. It took a little rest here on the window frame, spreading it's wings and showing the glorious colors hidden under the brown cloak. What an incredibly beautiful little moth!
Did you see it? I didn't at first. No, my attention was on the beautiful orange and black underwings, the moving 'feelers', the fluttering frantic flitting about all over the window and the window frame. From one side to the other, up to the top, down again to the bottom.
Hidden in plain sight, resting itself on the window from, hidden in the shadow of the big beast beside it, was this little guy.
I am in awe.
Thank you, Father in Heaven, for your gifts of color, of movement, of life. Thank you for the gift of sight, for the gift of joy and pleasure in the small things You have created. You are an amazing God! Thank you for loving even me.
Your Daughter
Last night we went out and watched the ISS and Discovery go over. This time I took my camera and had it set on the night setting with no flash. Now, why didn't I get out my tripod? :)
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The Hubble Telescope is working again. I love this photo. I'm using it as my desktop wallpaper right now. I so enjoy looking at the photos Hubble takes. I know that they are color enhanced to show specific things - different gases and rays of different sorts and all - but even so, I often wonder if God doesn't see them in color similar to this, too.
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People we know from one of our supporting churches in Colorado Springs had 4 bears in their neighborhood today. The photos look they were a mama and 3 older cubs. Kara, John and Stirling saw a bear run across the highway in downtown Woodland Park a few weeks ago, too. What is this - The Year of the Bear?
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Mel asked me earlier this afternoon if I wanted some nastalgia. I said sure. He put on a John Denver cd. Oh my - yes, that does take me back. All the way to, hmm, when was it? 1973 I think, when I was working the in the Springs and was living with a roommate from Minnesota who also worked at the same place I did. I have a very vivid memory of being in her car, driving down Uintah Street on the way to work, listening to Rocky Mountain High. John Denver's life is so sad to me, tho. Usually when I listen to his music I think of drugs and alcohol, of immorality, of worshipping the creation rather than the Creator, and of the time he insulted me at a concert. Yes - he did. Me. It was at the Air Force Academy and he said something about Alaska and even tho my friend and I were way up in the nosebleed seats, we hooted and hollered a thumbs-up for Alaska and he insulted us. Can't remember what he said, I was so shocked by it. Traumatized, I tell you. Never got over it. Nope. My hero insulted me. sigh.
ha ha
Actually, my respect for him plummeted at that point, really. But I still like his music. I also am very sad to know that he is most likely in hell right now. I've never seen anything that remotely resembled a confession of faith in Jesus Christ by him, but instead, there is a lot of evidence that he was very into New Age stuff.
So sad.
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We are going to L'viv next week for a few days. I called a gal to see if she can come over and check on Cheyenne and feed my little fishies. She said yes, altho she is also house sitting for someone else during that time. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when we are gone for 6 months. It's never been a problem before, but it sure will be now, finding a flat-cat-fish sitter. I'm already praying that God will show us just the right person to do it. One of the difficult things about living in two countries, of not really having a "home" on this earth but still being attached to living things. While we are gone, at least two of my plants always die, too, so I'll be curious to see after 6 months how many I have left. Just a few days won't matter next week for the plants, but it would matter for the fish. Oh dear. Worrying about it will not solve any of the problem. We'll see what happens.
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The landlord, and probably his wife, are coming over again tomorrow morning early to finish fixing the kalunka. I hope this is it. Really, I do. I'm tired of them coming over all the time. I know, I know - it's been almost a whole week, maybe more than a week, actually. But - I want it done and over with!
I think I'm quickly heading into people-overload and I've hardly been around people all week. I even had part of one day where I was totally alone for 3 or 4 hours. I revelled in it! I loved it. I wanted MORE. Next week in L'viv maybe Mel and I can walk over to the cemetery again and just be alone together for a few hours there.
I don't think extroverts have any clue how much introverts NEED to be alone sometimes.
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All for tonight. I have a whole bunch of dishes from dinner (company) tonight to do before I go to bed. It's after midnight again, which means the water is back on so now I can go do them! Mel will most likely go to bed alone, again, but I'll be there before too long!
This is definitely The Year of the Dragonfly. The day I wrote about it last week we ended up with at least 5 in our flat. We've had several since then, too, including 2 today. Cheyenne went nuts until she actually caught both of them. We were gone part of the early afternoon and when we got back she made sure I saw this one, which had been hanging onto that pipe-thing in the ceiling of the office room. Apparently that thing is very attractive to dragonflies because most of them end up there at least for a few minutes. Strange little things, but they sure are pretty.
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Yesterday Ira and Yuri brought little Sasha to church for the first time. What a cutie he is! He didn't cry at all, just made a few little baby noises - you know the kind, grunts, stretches, an episode of hiccups during the sermon, little baby squeaks. Here are a couple of photos of the happy family. Ok, ok, 3 photos. :->
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The sun is still blank. This is the longest blank spell so far this year. I wonder how long it will last? And I wonder when this Solar Minimum will end? A lot of scientists are wondering that! I'm just a simple little nobody, and I'm wondering, too. I also wonder what ramifications it has for our weather, space weather that affects the earth, and so forth. Time will tell.
Spotless Days Current Stretch: 51 days 2009 total: 193 days (80%) Since 2004: 704 days Typical Solar Min: 485 days Updated 30 Aug 2009
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It's registration time again. They wanted photos this time, so Mel and I went searching for a photo place today. The one we've gone to before was open but the camera was not there - it was being fixed. So, we decided to go get a little puff pastry thing (sloika) with cheese or cherries in it and a drink at the Cappuccino place we went to several times over the winter. We ended up not with what Mel ordered, but this is no great surprise since actually it is quite common to get something other than what you ordered. Three times Mel said NOT 'that' and that's what we got. It was good, just not cheese or cherry filled. Plus we tried out their summer drinks - a chocolate espresso mixed with heavy cream milk and whipped with ice. There were chunks of ice in the bottom of the glass when we finished the drinks. Ice. That, in and of itself, shows how far Kherson has come in the past 11 years. We NEVER saw ice here used for drinking when we first arrived. Ice out on the streets and sidewalks during the winter - yes. Ice in your drink in the summer? You'll die of a sore throat!!!!! Forbidden!!!! I am not exaggerating - people were horrified when they heard we drink ice cold water or water with ice in it, or other cold/icy drinks. Now - cold drinks are fairly common. How things have changed.
Anyway, I started this little section talking about getting a photo. I do wander around sometimes. You should see my farm on Facebook Farm Town! I think it's a perfect picture of my personality... I mentioned this to a friend who has a huge plantation/farm on Farm Town and she said she's thought that how people build their farms would be a great subject for a thesis study. :-)
After our snack and time talking and just being together, we walked on up the street to another photo place. Success this time! I actually like my photo: Too bad we have to turn them in and I can't get this made larger. I don't know what I'd do with it if I did, but I like it. I don't like very many photos of me, so this is quite unusual. Maybe I could give one to each of my kids and say: "Remember me like this when I am gone." :)
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Ok, it's time to go make dinner. Past time, really. Adios for now.
This will be a fairly short post tonight. I am wiped out. I can't remember ever being so tired so many days in a row - jet lag has hit me with a vengeance.
Yesterday we went over to Eric and Lauren's for lunch and then we watched the final of the French Open Tennis. I actually had to stand up at one point during the final and walk around because I was going to sleep. That, and I had a bad cramp in my thigh (need more potassium - oranges and bananas, plus a lot more water - I'm a bit dehydrated).
We went over to the train station about an hour early. Our luggage was in the "kamera", or storage area, and Mel needed to get it out. We came back with a lot more than we left with again. Some of the weight is books and Sunday School materials I'll use in the fall, some is vitamins and minerals, some is a new pair of shoes and a couple or three new blouses. It adds up quickly.
Finally we got everything under the train tracks, through the passage to the platform we needed, up the stairs again, and discovered we were at the totally wrong end of the train. No fear! We just hauled it all down the platform 10 wagon lengths!
We climbed on board (yes it is a climb, you climb up 3 steps to the floor of the wagon - 3 steps that are almost perpendicular like a ladder) and dragged the bags down the length of the wagon to our coupe'. They have the sheets and towel already set out now, waiting for you get to on board. This is a new thing - in the past we had to wait until the attendant arrived, took our tickets, asked if we wanted sheets, we paid for them and then he/she brought them back sometime later. Now you pay for them when you buy the tickets. Much easier and simpler. I got my sheets out and immediately made my bunk. To be honest, I'm not sure when Mel made his. After the train started and the younger attendant had taken our tickets, he went down to the attendants coupe' and asked for a cup of coffee. I laid down and was sound asleep before he got back - I don't even remember putting my head on the pillow! I woke up briefly when the attendant brought his coffee - raised my head, saw a woman's rear end pointed toward me as she bent to put the coffee on the little table, and then I was asleep again. Whew! Another first - going to sleep immediately on the train - we weren't even out of Kiev yet!
I woke up several times during the night. Once with another cramp in my thigh - I stood there 'cursing' the heat (the old "traveling ovens" were in effect again) and wishing I had some pickle juice and a whole lot more water to drink. It finally went away, but all day long my legs have both been 'on the verge' of having another cramp. I've drinking lots of water and eating some salty food, too, and of course, an orange or two....
I was awake before 5 AM. Uh oh. Now at 8:45 tonight I'm wiped out again. I'll go to bed pretty soon. Hopefully I'll get back into a normal sleep rhythm soon.
Ukraine is putting on quite a show right now. The views from the train windows were incredibly beautiful. Spring and early summer are the best times of year to be here. Green fields, wild flowers (orange poppies, pale blue flax, a dark purple flower similar to a wild delphinium, and more flowers in yellows, whites and of course, beautiful wild pink roses!) and green deciduous trees, including Russian Olives - dozens of them. Some of the fields have already been harvested - I think that may have been hay - I'm pretty sure it is not time for the winter wheat yet. We saw oats for sure, sunflowers not blooming yet, and the very beginning of rape seed (canola oil) coming into bloom. There was winter wheat out there, and rye and buckwheat not in bloom yet. Plus many, many private gardens - onions, potatoes, squashes of different sorts, and so forth. Cows - lots and lots of cows, but not like in America - these cows are staked, not free range. Goats. Geese. Ukraine at her best, and oh so beautiful!!
So, I'm missing Colorado - no doubt about that. I will always miss Colorado! But it was a gift from God to see Ukraine so beautiful right now.
Now - time to check and see if a photo I took turned out good before my battery died.Wow - check out that blue sky! This is also the time of year for blue skies here. We even saw some thunderheads yesterday in Kiev as we were getting ready to get on the train.
I have always collected little stones. Not just in my shoes as I walk here and there :), but I actually look for beautiful stones. This is not an easy thing to do here in Kherson. There is a lot of dirt and dust and sand and muck, but not very many stones.
Now, I come from a part of the world where there are a lot of stones. And not only stones, but rocks. I mean, really big rocks. Really, really big rocks. The Rocky Mountain kind of big rocks. This rock is located just a few miles from my parents home and there are many more like it in the surrounding area.
BIG rocks. :)
I'm not sure when my rock collecting started. I can remember in my childhood receiving from someone a sheet of cardboard with little stones glued to it. Each stone was labeled as to what it was and possibly (I don't remember this exactly) where it came from. Some of those stones were beautiful. At least one looked like a nice chunk of caramel candy. Others just looked like the rocks we had out in the driveway, ho hum. I can remember actually licking that caramel colored stone - it was all smooth and shiny and looked really good - was it a stone or was it candy just pretending to be a stone? Ah, childhood - when life was simple. heh heh
The next real memory of my collecting stones comes from Alaska. I remember walking along a glacial river, a tributary to the mighty Copper River near Copper Center. I was with Mel and he was showing me 'his' Alaska. I was intrigued by the stones and rocks along the river bank. Many of them were a dark gray with brilliant white stripes running through them. I collected a handful of small stones, ones more unusual than the others due to the angles or widths of the stripes, and even a couple of pure white stones. I have no idea whatever happened to them. Maybe some day an geologist will excavate an area and wonder how those particular stones from the Copper River Basin in Alaska ended up in Fairbanks or possibly even in Colorado.
When we lived in the Wet Mountain Valley of Colorado we explored the area at every opportunity. One of the things I really enjoyed was collecting stones and rocks from different places. Green stones, maroon rocks, stripped rocks, yellow stones, and best of all, some pale tan and rust striped rocks. I ended up with a quart sized jar of different stones, all smaller than an inch in diameter, but beautiful in a variety of color, texture and pattern. The tan and rust striped rocks were/are amazing. The stripes were in circles and curly cues and waves. No two rocks were alike. I wanted a whole collection of them. Imagine the following photo as a rock you can actually pick up:Poor Mel got tired of finding rocks in the back of our van after I'd go out for a walk. I used them as borders for my flower gardens and even took some of them up to my parents place. My mother still uses them as borders around her flower gardens. When we left that place, I dug the most beautiful ones out of the garden border and they are in storage right now as I write this.
One of the beautiful things God has given us that we so often take for granted. How often do we look at the ground around us and see the diversity, the beauty, the gift God has given us? All too seldom, I fear.
I have a small collection of stones here in Ukraine, picked up along the river or out in a village we visited once. There are also stones from Spain, California and one may be from Oregon. Unfortunately, I love the way they look, but I forget exactly where they come from. Mixed in with those stones in the little display are seashells from the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Pacific Ocean, and several small pieces of driftwood from the Pacific.Several times Ukrainians have asked me why I have all those stones, shells and weird pieces of wood on that shelf. I say, "They each remind me of some place I have been." But there is more to it than that. They are beautiful. And I like them.
This morning, while checking out the articles on geology.com, I came across this video clip:Balancing Rocks by Bill Dan There is more information about this guy, and others who do this, on Rock On, Rock ON!
Last night at our team prayer time, Mel gave a short devotional on what it means to 'enjoy God', mentioning Eric Liddell's famous quote: "God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure." We talked about what we do where we also feel God's pleasure. I showed this YouTube video to Mel and his first response was, "I hope he feels God's pleasure when he does this." I hope so. It is an amazing talent, what this man can do, a combination of God given eye-hand coordination and patience. As I watched him, I thought about how his eyes saw the stone and his hand held the stone and his arms felt the weight of the rock resting against his muscles - until suddenly, that weight was gone - resting instead totally on the stone beneath.
I like rocks. I'm glad God made rocks. I feel His pleasure when I enjoy His creation.
I love this photo! It makes me smile. It is a very familiar sight to me, these rocks. It is very nice to have them chosen as the photo for this article. It is a photo from home. :) Big smiles!
GREAT CONJUNCTION: Last night, the three brightest objects in the night sky converged, producing a triple-conjunction of stunning beauty. Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon were crowded into a patch of sky just a few degrees across when Steve Lantz took this picture from the Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs:
Photo Details: Canon PowerShot G2, ISO 50, 15 seconds at f/2.5
"The rock formation in the foreground is called Kissing Camels rock," says Lantz. "We had some clouds, but that was no problem. Venus and the Moon beamed right through them."
In the 10-year history of Spaceweather.com, no single event has generated more photos than this one. Submissions have poured in from six continents, dozens of countries, kingdoms, democracies, theocracies, ships, planes, cars, and even from a military aircraft refueling 35,000 feet over Iraq. We're building a gallery to display a selection of the best shots. Stay tuned! from: SpaceWeather.com
I have had a thought in my mind for several days. Just a 'mind picture' that I cannot seem to do anything with at the moment. A single snow flake landing on a baby spruce tree branch. Winter cold, gray day, heavy skies, silent lacey flakes drifting down, silently, oh so silently one by one by thousands. Dried meadow grasses, standing stiff and frozen, coated with hoarfrost. The silence of the forest in winter, broken by the sharp crack of a tree freezing deeper in the icy cold. Silence. Crystal clear air, clean and fresh, cold and dry. The croaking call of a raven to his mate as he flies high above and out of sight. The darkness of the far pines and spruce fading into gray and finally disappearing as the flakes begin to fall faster and thicker.
But it all begins with one flake, drifting down and landing on a baby spruce tree and lodging between two needles.
I can feel it. Hear it. Smell it. Almost taste it. Live it again. And again. Once more.
