Just a reminder

Be sure to visit http://www.revealedreflections.com for my blog posts on our travels and the joys of the Golden Years. Please subscribe to that blog so that when I post you will get an email notice.

I hope to see you there.

Mary

I'm back but am leaving again

I have neglected my blogs terribly. My husband and I have embarked on an exciting journey and I would like to share it with you. Please visit my blog
and go with us as we travel through the Golden Years. Please share your journey and struggles with us too. We would love to hear from you.

After a few weeks I intend to close this blog. Today is September 25. I will be deleting this blog on Halloween.

Don't forget to bookmark the link above.

We're packing!

My dear husband has contacted our moving company and we'll be moving on May 27th and closing escrow on the 28th. I can hardly wait.

Gary is working on his garage getting it ready for a garage sale. I have to watch him because if I don't, he'll sell my stuff!! Bless his heart, he'd sell anything that wasn't nailed down if I let him. So I keep an eye on what he's setting out for the sale.

Tomorrow I'll be tackling our closet. We both have so many clothes and we just don't wear them all nor do we need them. So, many will go in the garage sale too. I need to go through the ones that are for colder weather and decide what we need to keep and what we've saved but never use. This is a time of purging! A time of weeding out the excesses of this and that. My kitchen will be the next thing to be sorted through. We won't have as much room in our little house for one thing, but I can't express fully how freeing it is to get rid of all of the stuff in your life that is just taking up space.

You don't have to be moving to do this, you know. A cluttered home equals a cluttered life and a cluttered mind. Clear out a bit of that and just see how much lighter you feel. We all have way more than we can use and way more than we need. Do donate it rather than throwing it out, though. There are others that don't have enough. We need to share with them.

Gary and I are so excited about embarking on this new adventure. Our plans for our first journey are beginning to take shape. Some friends have a six week trip planned in their RV and we've been invited to join them. We just may do that for at least a part of their trip. It's fun to travel with another couple, and the four of us like so to do a lot of the same things.

I shall keep you posted on the packing and purging. I'm giddy with excitement at times and so is Gary. How wonderful!! We continue to praise the Lord for opening doors for us. We have a sense of being right smack in the center of his plan for our lives. I can't wait to see what he has in store for us.

Will be in touch again soon!

Embarking on a new adventure, a new way of life

Pictured here with me is our latest family member, Little Bit More. Daily she enriches our lives and makes us laugh.

It's been quite a while since I have posted a blog here. Life does get busy and I can't help but be aware that when life does get that way, one of the first things to go is my quiet time with the Lord. When I most need Him, I get too busy for Him. Isn't that the way it goes?

Some time ago, my husband Gary and I decided that we wanted to simplify our lives. We wanted to sell our house, pay off all of our debt, put our stuff in storage and take off in our motor home. With the economy going South, selling our house has taken six months. We got less than we hoped to get, but we're okay. At this point we're just glad we have a buyer. At the end of May we'll close escrow.

So, after the close of escrow and a short trip with our grandson and a friend of his, Gary, Little Bit and I are going to take off for a few months. We have a small, very humble, rental house that we will remodel and use as our home base when we're ready to return. We intend to spend the majority of our time traveling, though. We'll be gone most of the summer for sure, and longer if the mood strikes.

I really feel that the Lord is working a plan in our lives and it is my plan to share what He's doing here in this blog. As always, I hope that He will speak through me to encourage all of you. Please let me know if you have special needs that we can pray about with you and for you.

Meanwhile, prepare to join me as I embark on this journey. I have a feeling that it is going to be a wonderful one and the thing that the Lord has been preparing me for all of this time. We shall see.

Until next time,

Mary

God is in His heavens....

I'm not sure when it hit me today, but several times as I have gone about doing what I do, there has been an awareness of God's movement in our world and the lives of the people of the United States of America.

I was in my teens during the 50s. Things were different then. Families were so important, values were important, doing what was right was very important. We could debate the rightness of how we thought and did things during that time, but once we hit the 60s we started on a path away from center. We kept going and going until we ended up where we are today. We're at a place where nothing is of value. We throw things away easily. We humans throw away children as easily as we throw away trash. People are killing their children and children are killing their parents. I find these things to be a wound on the spirits of all of us.

Since the housing crisis and then the stock market crisis, it seems that our world has started to shake and it can't seem to stop. We humans are running around madly trying to find an answer to these problems. The government is throwing money at it and we all are desperately seeking answers yet finding none.

I was blogging on victory gardens earlier when it occurred to me that since all of the worldly things that we have been hanging onto have started to fail we've all begun to once again look to those things of real value in our lives. Things like family, church and God instead of money and things. Suddenly the things that seemed so out of focus for so long, like saving our planet, and valuing the things that money can't buy, are once again important.

I had truly lost hope that the pendulum would ever swing back in the direction of what was really important in our world. I don't know if we'll ever regain the innocence we once had. The days of "Leave it to Beaver", of "Ozzie and Harriet". However, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel of once again finding value in doing the right thing for the greater good. Of finding value in working today for what is important in the future.

God is working mightily in these difficult times and I am praising for showing me His hand in all of this.

Stress upon stress

Last week I got on my knees beside our bed and poured my heart out to the Lord asking Him to show me what we aren't doing, what we aren't hearing Him tell us. "Are we listening and hearing you, Lord?" "If this isn't what you want us to do, please show us the path you want us to take. We only want to do what You want us to do no matter what!"

Later Gary and I talked about the situation here and made some decisions. We called a realtor friend of ours to talk to her about our home and why it isn't selling. We've had it listed for 3 or 4 months now and have had lookers, but no buyers. How frustrating!! She came over and made some suggestions. We value this friend's expertise so will follow her advice to the letter.

So, today finds us removing wallpaper borders, preparing to paint, to remove the carpet in our great room and entry and put wood down instead. We're also putting tile in our bathrooms. We have carpet in them now other than around the toilets.

Gary and I feel that this is a direct answer to prayer and are praising God for His direction.

What do people do who don't have the Lord in their lives? He knows just what we need and He is with us always. I praise Him for that.

The end of another week

We still haven't sold our house. We've again lowered the asking price and have added an additional bonus to the realtor that sells it. The thinking on the bonus is that it encourages realtors to show our house. We shall see what these recent changes will bring us. More lookers, I hope, and a buyer most of all. Gary says, "Don't panic, honey". Good advice for sure.

These are such unsettling times unlike any that we have seen in our lifetime. I wish I could ask my folks what it was like during the great depression of the 1930s. What did they do and how did they manage to keep their heads. Ah for some of my father's wisdom to lean on. Mom and dad raised 7 children, saw a lot of very difficult times, took risks and always ended up landing on their feet. That is amazing to me. Dad's approach to finances was different than ours, though. He didn't bother paying a utility bill until they were ready to shut the lights off or the gas. I rushed with him to the post office to put a check in the mail at the last minute many times. That stress would make me crazy. I prefer to pay bills on time. There is security in taking care of business.

As I turn to the Lord for guidance as we walk during these uncertain financial times, I find comfort and perspective. After spending time with my Lord I lay my burden down and trust Him with it. However, after a day or even a few hours I pick up that old sack again and pull it around with me until I realize once more how stressed I am. Then back to the Lord I run to once more place things in his hands.

One day I hope to be mature enough to leave things in his hands. Meanwhile, I'm so glad that he never tires of hearing my cries of fear, never tires of comforting me and giving me his amazing abundant grace.

P.T.L.