Texas vs Colorado

Eddie and Shep went to Houston to visit the Grandparents and Aunt JenJen.  Unlike the rest of the US, I had to work MLK Day and didn't want the Deckers to be a shuttle service to the airport all weekend, so I stayed.  I was fretting the loneliness and tears.  Low and behold, my friend Martina from Austin just happened to be in Colorado the same weekend and invited me out.  Well, it's much cheaper and shorter to fly to Denver than Houston so I Pricelined it and got a steal of a deal!  Ed, Shep, and I all left at around the same time so we went to the airport together.  I gulped back tears and dove into a book for distraction as I said goodbye.  But then I had an amazing time hanging with Martina and Ira and Kim and her boys.  We got to hang outside without concern for the air quality.  We chased the kids around their neighborhood playground and hockey rink.  Then just the girls went for a 5 mile trail run, then we all went to a brewery party, had a dance party, played a game, and drank a little too much beer. (6% will get you fast when you are used to 3.2%!)  And not to mention all the soul bearing.  Man, I sure do miss living in the same city as heart friends.  I know it takes time and lots of transition in Salt Lake, but it's just plain hard living without those lifelong friends that know your heart.  I was so challenged by Kim/Tim and Martina/Brent  in their can-do spirit. (Apparently I need some inspiration- I feel like a city-girl-weakling because I couldn't pick up our dead chicken and take it to the trash can.  Thankfully, Eddie didn't get the heebie jeebies on that one.)  I'm inspired to home-brew, build a drip system for the garden, somehow let our chicks free range for a little bit, play more board games, do more home projects myself instead of defer to Eddie, read books, and eat more veggies.  And of course, my small scale farming dream is in full force (minus the dirty work like disposing of dead chickens.)  Kim/Tim dream of farming too where they will have a restaurant in the middle of their farm- picnic table style.  We dream of the airstream corral retreat/conference center surrounded by gardens.  Martina dreams of mountain adventures.  We are all living our little farms dreams to an extent: Kim/Tim with their free ranging chickens and raised beds, Martina/Brent with their pigs/chickens, us with our gardens and now one lone chicken.  It will be exciting to see where God takes us over the years to fulfill our dreams either on earth or in heaven.  And I hope that our paths will cross in these future dreams as they come true.  If nothing else, perhaps an annual MLK Day meet up.

When I got home, Jane mentioned feeling at home in Redding with "her people."  She didn't feel special when around so many other international and S.Africans at her visit to Bethel.  She basked in that feeling of normalcy.  She was talking of the importance of being with "your people" so that God multiplies your giftings more than your own.  I felt the same when in Golden with Kim and Martina.  I didn't feel special or different.  I felt encouraged and inspired to create, take responsibility, and foster that which I'd been given such as land, home, Shep and my marriage.  Someday, I'd love to be around "my people" again where we encourage each other and spur each other on to greater glory.

In the meantime, Shep and Eddie came home and my heart regained its other half.  I sure did miss them and the rest of the family and trust that they had a great time in Houston.  These are "my people" now.  Back to the grind of work and school and choo choo's. (Shep is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine.)  We are embracing winter and getting outside to hike and run and refresh our souls-air polluted or not.  Eddie took care of the chicken and is in the process of building a box for the new chicks that we'll get soon.  Shep and I have been laughing a lot this week (and watching a lot of choo choo's.)  I started listening to a book about blessing your womb; it's very interesting so far.  More in a later post.  But now that a week has past and we are settled into the grind, life is really a roller coaster with its up's and down's but holding tight to God and his goodness to come on earth as it is in heaven.