What a Beautiful Sunset

Mel and I picked up the mail this afternoon on our way to the post office to mail out our Christmas cards and prayer/update letters. I've often wondered what the mail delivery person thinks about the mail that comes to this address. There are several names and last names that get mail here: my parents of course - this is actually their house after all!, Mel and me, our son Andrew, our daughter and son-in-law, and my nephew and niece still often get advertisements here, too. That's a total of 4 last names right there. Then my aunt and uncle got mail here for awhile after their house was foreclosed on and they lived here for 9 months. Two of my sisters still get an occasional piece of mail here, each under their married names. It's pretty amazing, actually. The mail boxes started out as TWO old fashioned mail boxes with a red flags on the sides. That was 40 years ago. Yes, 40 years ago. Wow. Where did the time go? Now, just around the corner from where that box was, are located 5 or 6 multi-box boxes. I don't know how many people live down this side county road now, but I know it was originally two families. Now - possibly 25 or more from the number of boxes. Some of the boxes are for people who live farther up the main county road as well. Every once in awhile, the post office puts in another post with more of those locked boxes on it.
Mel opened my parents' box and right there on the very top of the stack of mail were 2 notices that mail needed to be picked up at the Tamarack branch post office. Our visas had arrived. So, we drove on down to the main post office and bought stamps, stuck stamps on envelopes and then gave them to the clerk behind the counter. Then we drove north out of town - well, it used to be OUT of town, now it's just to the north end of town - and went to the second post office. We had to wait in line for about 15 or 20 minutes. And then, suddenly it seemed like, our whole world did a major shift. We held our passports in hand, looking at bright shiny visas that told us, and the world, that we could live in Ukraine legally for the next 12 months.We've been expecting these visas. We've prayed for these visas to arrive in a timely manner. Part of me said, "Well, it's about time." And another part of me cried out, "No! Not yet! How can I leave my home, my family, Colorado? I'm not ready!"

It seems that we have been living in a crack between two worlds for so long now that I'm not sure what it's going to be like to actually live 'for reals' in one of those worlds completely. A part of me is mourning. A part is rejoicing. I confess - mostly I am mourning.

My parents are elderly and both have had major surgery this year. My father is on 24/7 oxygen now and has fluctuating blood sugar levels. My mother is still recovering from her stroke 18 months ago, although most people would never realize she'd had one, she has recovered so well at this point. She is still recovering from her shoulder surgery this summer. It is difficult for me to leave them now.

My kids are doing well, overall, although this was a very difficult year for our daughter and her family. I dread leaving my grandkids... I don't think I can even write about it at this moment. Pain. Real, emotional pain.

So, Mel and I picked up our mail and then we went shopping for a few items. And then we came home, to my parents' home. And God gave me a blessing. As we came out of the UPS shop, where we bought a box to prepare stuff for shipping to Ukraine, the sky was ablaze in color. Mel drove up a road we know has a good view of the sky and this is where I took these photos tonight.

I know that I will not see beautiful skies until we come home from Ukraine. Colorado skies are Western skies and Western skies do not exist in Ukraine. We seldom see the sky in Ukraine, especially in the winter months - we see white or unbroken gray, but no sky. God gave me a gift tonight and I will hold onto it.

He will hold onto me.
He will not let me go.
I have His promise.

Little Birdie on My Windowsill and More

I had another little visitor this morning. The camera was in the living room so I had to go get it and was afraid this little guy would fly off before I got back. But he stuck around just long enough to get his photo taken. There are several birds flying between the tree and just to the right of our window. I wonder if the crack in the building is back? The birds used to build nests in that crack each spring and I could sit here in the office and listen to the baby birds chirping in the wall beside me. No more. :( Nope. It's still filled with that black tar someone filled it with while we were gone a couple years ago. However, if you look closely, you can see that the plaster is beginning to crack off on the other side. When I looked up there from ground level yesterday I could see that there are a whole bunch of cracks above our flat. It's just the plaster that's on top of the stone/brick the building is actually built of, but I know the rain here eats away at brick and stone and causes a lot of damage. (I think that is called "acid rain". Ha.)

Here are the two photos I took last night when we went out to find the noctilucent clouds which didn't exist but saw the ISS instead. Whew! that was a sentence!

While taking this first photo I held the camera at one angle and it focused on the cemetery and the gravestones which totally washed out the sky. It does give a good view of where we were at, though. This is a Jewish cemetery and it is located directly across the street from the building next to us (our building is on a slight bend in the road). We usually walk on the 'our' side of the street and then cross over at a cross walk to get to "our" Oskar store which is located right next to the cemetery. Last night we crossed at the corner of our building where they have put in a new stop light. That was a whole lot easier than trying to wait for speeding traffic and being afraid someone would run over us in the cross walk! I don't know why people have to speed every where here. I mean SPEED - like 60 miles an hour and accelerating down 3 blocks between stoplights when the limit is no more than 35. ALL the vehicles do this, not just the "speeders". It is very frustrating and dangerous - more than one person has been killed in the cross walk to the store in the years since the store was built. But I digress - altho the subject of this paragraph IS supposed to be the cemetery across the street...... And here is a photo from a slightly different angle. For both photos I set the camera in a hole a chain link fence which surrounds the cemetery to stabelize it, angled it differently and used a non-flash setting. I like the way this one looks. The sky was very pretty last night with lots of orange and pink near the horizon. Now, to the photo above, just add a bright light about the size of Venus at sunset, and fly it across the left side of the photo, way up high. That is the ISS. :) :)