(Do you remember when I posted this post on June 24, 2007, one year ago today? I've pasted it below to refresh your memory...)If...you're happy and you know it spin a WEB.
If you're happy and you know it spin a web!
If you're happy and you know it.....
Then your face will surely show it...
If you're happy and you know it, spin a web!
(This spider has been webbed up on the gardenia bush and the top of my morning coffee patio chair since we got back from Switzerland. As long as he is happy, and willing to catch mosquitos, I am willing to let him have the back of the chair.)
Pretty mellow spider.
And the orange smile is just too cute!
Have a happy Sunday. And remember to smile while YOU are hanging out!
~~~
(Fast forward to today: Well lookie here, guess what!)
Smilie the spider is back!
Another song comes to mind, something about "we're all in our places with bright shiny faces..."
I have NO idea if it is the same spider from last year, or if she is the daughter of Smilie, but there she is, in the exact same location, on the exact same date, one year later.
I have no idea where she went during the autumn, winter and spring either. She didn't write, she didn't send even a post card....
I do wonder how many generations of Smilies have built webs on this particular plot of land. Like, since after getting off the Ark? Something to think about.
Finding something to think about really isn't a problem around here. My mind is mulling over what I want to take, sell or give away from all our possessions. That question would be a lot easier to answer if I knew exactly where we were going to.
The question of where we are going to shifts daily. Opportunities for interviews come from many directions, and ultimately we will have to trust God to give us work where He wants us to be.
Meanwhile we are going ahead with getting our house ready for sale. I'm taking "Before" "During" and "After" pictures.
The kitchen "Before":
Above: As seen from the living room
Walking into the kitchen from the living room/dining room .
Breakfast area.
(We keep two more matching chairs in our bedroom bay window area...easy to grab for extra seating when needed.)
French doors are next to the front door, entering the kitchen from the foyer. Cookbook book shelf behind rocker where I always dump my purse as I come in from the garage.
Kitchen desk and open shelving.
I culled about 3/4ths of my cook book collection a few years ago...the Internet has it all!
Looking from the breakfast nook back to the living room.
From the living room...Bernie is standing at the sink
DURING. This is the kitchen as it looks this morning. Yesterday the painters applied an oil based primer to the walls. The odor was potent, and opening all the windows in the 97 degree heat here was pretty icky.
Lucky for me I had to go to work all day...(smile!)
All the stuff from the sun room and kitchen is now piled up in the dining area and foyer. We are being challenged to establish new places for things like our keys, which have always hung in the kitchen right next to the garage door, and wallets, mail...all the stuff that we had designated areas for.
Communication is of utmost importance; we just hope one of us will remember where we decided to put stuff for now!
The sun room looks pretty crazy with the wall covering off...
Above: Kitchen counter art. Title: "Low Carb Snack"
With the kitchen torn up, meals are whatever you can grab!
I know this preparation process is going to go fast, and by Monday it will all be put back together and look fabulous.
No biggie...
I was putting away some small desktop family pictures and came across this shot:
Taken in San Diego about 14 years ago.
I had NO idea that June 24 2008 would find me in Texas, chortling over returning spiders and wondering where I would find myself living next!
Who is the smarter one: the ones who never leave their area, or the ones who leave, and leave, and leave...goes on adventures, and maybe will one day return to where it all began again?
I always thought I was a bit Hobbitish...wanting to stay in the Shire.
But after moving from San Diego to Oregon (for college), back to San Diego for 20+ years, then to San Jose for a year, Dallas for two years, and Houston for eight years...truthfully...I am ready for another adventure!
If we had stayed put in San Diego, where we were both born and raised, and where my parents were born and raised, what would our lives had been like the last eleven years?
No trips to San Francisco for the day, or hiking in the Redwoods, or staying in beach houses in Santa Cruz.
No Master's degree for me. (Being near a library school in Dallas made that possible.)
No trips to Hawaii, Alaska, Grand Cayman, Oregon, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah, Florida, New England, Minnesota, Switzerland, or Canada. (Bernie's frequent flier miles made flights and hotels available for free or at greatly reduced rates.)
I would have tended my garden and never had known what I was missing.
Looking back on it all, I realize I was SO blessed by the situations that forced us to pack up and leave San Diego.
While at the time it seemed quite terrifying, looking back I see it was just the start of a grand adventure!
(Hmmm...this sounds a bit like a conversation at the beginning of The Hobbit!)
