Enjoying the Moment
Jessie and I went to the market yesterday to gather food to freeze for winter and to gather ingredients and such for Saturday's Annual Myers' Family Pumpkin Festival...
We took our time and looked at all the different kinds of gourds and pumpkins, compared sizes, shapes, and colors for a homeschool segment we are working on with comparison....I purchased my veggies, LOTS of them, and Jessie got her "market-day treat", a chocolate chip whoopie pie.
On the way home we drove by a small park in Lititz, a little neighborhood park. "Can we go to the park, Mom?". I paused for a moment as a began calculating the to-do list I had awaiting me and said "scrap-it", let's go! Although it wasn't a planned stop or event, it proved to be one of the nicest days we spent so far this fall. God blessed my spontaneity and flexibility.
The little park was nestled into a more mature neighborhood, maybe established in the 30's or 40's, one of my favorite time periods for homes because they are similar to where I was raised. There was a stream, a small playground and a little wooden fence bridge leading to a picnic pavilion.
The breezy 60 degree air was perfect as the sun occasionally peaked out from behind the rolly gray clouds .... Falling leaves dropped from the autumn trees and slowly danced their way to the ground...the smell of fall was in the air and I tried to drink in as much of that familiar aroma as I possibly could...and the more I drank in the moment we were living, the more I was filled with peace and joy.
We broke up the playtime with a sidewalk stroll through the neighborhood. The streets were lined with tall, old trees which provided the perfect amount of shade to keep us cool. As we walked through the neighborhood I was overwhelmed with a gentle yet undeniable sense of familiar, of home: sidewalks and trees and the style of homes like the neighborhood I knew so well as a child. Some of the leaves left stained imprints on the sidewalk which was beautifully buckled in spots......a woman who looked and dressed much like my mother greeted us from her porch chair....the trees towered overhead, dropping an occasional leaf. The residential street was silent of cars. It was just Jessie and me and the sound of crunching leaves beneath our feet as we made our way back toward the park:
My senses caught me away to an autumn day walking home to Gramas and Grampa's after school, playing around as my friends Alison, Jon and I made our way through the "shortcut" across the cemetery.....Docksides and backpacks, hide and seek.....looking down at my feet as they crunched through every pile of leaves they encountered....
Jessie suddenly raised her knee in take-off style as she often does and then bolted on her "white horse" across the park field back to the slide.....but not before stopping by the bench to see if her orange and black, fuzzy wuzzy caterpillar was waiting for her to protect him.
A few more photos, deep breaths ingesting the autumn air, close my eyes to drink it in more deeply....then, with great reluctance, time to go.
Thank you Lord for creating that perfect, healing, nurturing moment!
"I will restore all things lost, make all things new. I will take what was broken and make them new."
We took our time and looked at all the different kinds of gourds and pumpkins, compared sizes, shapes, and colors for a homeschool segment we are working on with comparison....I purchased my veggies, LOTS of them, and Jessie got her "market-day treat", a chocolate chip whoopie pie.
On the way home we drove by a small park in Lititz, a little neighborhood park. "Can we go to the park, Mom?". I paused for a moment as a began calculating the to-do list I had awaiting me and said "scrap-it", let's go! Although it wasn't a planned stop or event, it proved to be one of the nicest days we spent so far this fall. God blessed my spontaneity and flexibility.
The little park was nestled into a more mature neighborhood, maybe established in the 30's or 40's, one of my favorite time periods for homes because they are similar to where I was raised. There was a stream, a small playground and a little wooden fence bridge leading to a picnic pavilion.
The breezy 60 degree air was perfect as the sun occasionally peaked out from behind the rolly gray clouds .... Falling leaves dropped from the autumn trees and slowly danced their way to the ground...the smell of fall was in the air and I tried to drink in as much of that familiar aroma as I possibly could...and the more I drank in the moment we were living, the more I was filled with peace and joy.
We broke up the playtime with a sidewalk stroll through the neighborhood. The streets were lined with tall, old trees which provided the perfect amount of shade to keep us cool. As we walked through the neighborhood I was overwhelmed with a gentle yet undeniable sense of familiar, of home: sidewalks and trees and the style of homes like the neighborhood I knew so well as a child. Some of the leaves left stained imprints on the sidewalk which was beautifully buckled in spots......a woman who looked and dressed much like my mother greeted us from her porch chair....the trees towered overhead, dropping an occasional leaf. The residential street was silent of cars. It was just Jessie and me and the sound of crunching leaves beneath our feet as we made our way back toward the park:
My senses caught me away to an autumn day walking home to Gramas and Grampa's after school, playing around as my friends Alison, Jon and I made our way through the "shortcut" across the cemetery.....Docksides and backpacks, hide and seek.....looking down at my feet as they crunched through every pile of leaves they encountered....
Jessie suddenly raised her knee in take-off style as she often does and then bolted on her "white horse" across the park field back to the slide.....but not before stopping by the bench to see if her orange and black, fuzzy wuzzy caterpillar was waiting for her to protect him.
A few more photos, deep breaths ingesting the autumn air, close my eyes to drink it in more deeply....then, with great reluctance, time to go.
Thank you Lord for creating that perfect, healing, nurturing moment!
"I will restore all things lost, make all things new. I will take what was broken and make them new."
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