Grateful For:

1.  Strange bits of fiction writing that seem to be leading me toward something coherent.  Or incoherent.  I don't know.  Without hope, without despair:  write.  (Last night was a little bit of it.  I have no idea what it's about.  That's exciting and strange.)

2.  Grandma's plaque, the one that says, "Slow me down, Lord."

3.  The wheelbarrow I dropped on my foot today while cleaning up all the dead stuff around the place.  I cut back the bushes and roses, pulled dead leaves, raked and picked up fallen branches.  The usual stuff.

I usually pile it all onto a tarp and drag it to the garden, load after load.  And the dead leaf/branch/self pile keeps getting bigger and bigger.  It covers half the garden now.  Lynn and Kirk will come with their pitchforks and gator and haul it off to the burn pile for me.  So, I picked up the wheelbarrow to shake the last clinging branches out and brought it down right on top of my foot, which was obscured by the leaves.  Anyway.  I'm not very graceful.   But I'm thankful for the reminder to pay closer attention, not hurry.  I am also amazed at my sheer strength, like the Hulk or something.  (Ha!)

4.  Working outside until the sun set at 8:00.  Thanking Him for the day and the work and the breeze and the birdsong as He speaks of a time to rest, the sky closing like a book from the east's darkening distance.

5.  And a poem for the day:

 Parallel with the earth, spine
straightened against grass, eye
lids a red curtain, trees breathing,
sun warming something icy
inside.  Warm tear
of thanks and thaw.

6.  Groceries.

7.  The daily habit of His word.

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