Home on the Range

Home On The Range


Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day 


Yep- that's my fantasy!


Home, home on the range- well there is a some cool pasture land off my big porch...

Where the deer and the antelope play- I do have deer wandering through but I'd have to drive an hour to Wyoming to see antelope play.

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word- ah... reality hits.  If you leave a house in the Black Hills all September, you can return to Lord of the Flies. All those gross things trapped in my house by the terrific caulking job have hatched and died trying to escape.  My mother reminds me that last year they were shoveling them out with snow shovels... I'm merely filling vaccuum cleaner bags. Still.... this is gross.  ( You don't want a picture... trust me)

And the skies are not cloudy all day - YEAH! That's right.....except today. As I vaccuumed flies and contemplated why my clothes have multiplied like those flies.... it really is cloudy.  


So I guess there is no paradise this side of heaven.  My kids came for a week in August and we unpacked some boxes, moved some, ignored more.  I made piles in my house in the few days I had there after they left. But mostly I stayed in Rapid City and cared for my mother after her surgery. I flew back east and ran around like a crazy women- northern Virginia brings out the crazy in me.  I returned west and spent a few days vacationing with friends and family in Colorado.  Life is sweet.... 


Now I'm here- "home". In a small town where I know a handful of people- none of whom really know me. I have no internet cause I'm mooching off my brother and his is down.   I have a land line again but my answering  machine doesn't appear to be working.  My cell phone won't work at my house at all.  I'm in a Best Western coffee shop doing my internet stuff.  Life isn't exactly normal yet. 


So what is normal? Is normal having instant access to information or forcing myself to slow down and really read books instead of skim for highlights?  Is it being able to post a blog as soon as I write it or is it being patient with the process and writing anyway?  Is normal having the same people know you and put up with you anyway or is it being open to the new relationships God will bring?  And bringing your best to them. 


Could it be a season to discover who I am?  Who I want to be.  What I'm supposed to do next. More important, who I'm supposed to BE!  BEING not so much DOING. 

Lake Sheridan and my future kayak course

How often at night where the heavens are 
bright

Just a quiet spot

With the light of the glittering stars
Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed
If their glory exceeds that of ours 

Then give me a land where the bright diamond sand
Flows leisurely down to the stream
Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along
Like a maid in a heavenly dream 

Oh I would not exchange my old home on the range
Where the deer and the antelop play
Where the seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day







I'm home. Not exactly a range and not a swan in sight. The skies are cloudy occasionally but the home He has given me. And I'll discover the rest.