Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Road to Good Intentions

I have been away too long.  The road to HE- double hockey sticks is paved with Good Intentions or so it is written.  Not sure about where good intentions end up, but I am pretty sure we all have good intentions that are never fulfilled.   And yet I know people, my own son, being one, who sets goals for himself and timelines and seldom does he not succeed in those.   His goals and timelines tend to be very flexible and subject to surprising change, and maybe that's the secret to it all.  Beats me, but at this point the good intentions of mine through the years that did not materialize would fill a couple of large, dusty books.  

I had planned to write on here at least twice a week and sometimes more.  Three times a week was the goal that seemed attainable.  Well, here we are and more than three weeks have passed and nada.  Its not that I didn't have things run through my brain, but my brain seems to become more sieve-like with every passing month, and they come in and out they go.  I could use the excuse that Holiday happenings occurred and they did, but those were over two weeks past.  And I could use the excuse that I'm flat out decorating for Christmas which I am, but still....a half hour of morning's time doesn't seem like much, and yet I haven't seemed to find those precious moments.

It hasn't been an easy three weeks but then none of us breeze through life, as I am rudely finding out.  A meeting of women friends the other night, revealed we pretty much share universal sleep loss.   Where we once could fall asleep at the drop of a baby's toy, (and didn't in those days, we think we would never sleep again?), now we find sleep harder to find, and when we do sleep, we are too often, wrenched awake at hours only 3rd line shift workers realize.   Two o'clock, three and even four a.m. are now our hours to roam the house and watch the Hallmark channel's endless display of Christmas movies, which cheer us now, but what about January.....and February and, gloomy, gloomy March?    I don't even want to think of that prospect right now.  So, we are alike in our misery, and wondering when does this newest affliction of our aging process kick off and when will we sleep nonstop like many of the really senior citizens I know.   I surely hope its soon, though judging by my friend's various ages, I've got another decade yet of this....bummer.

So my latest good intentions of writing more kind of ran amuck, but I did have Thanksgiving in Nashville.  It was a bit of an impulse, but I do think sometimes God looks down on us and says this will all work out and to go for it.   I lined up a house sitter and dog watcher, Annie and Pete were glad to have us and declared they would do all the Thanksgiving dinner prep and it would be waiting for us when we got down there on Thanksgiving afternoon.   My family famous butterhorn rolls were the only request I was asked to bring.  We had a good trip down, less road traffic on Thanksgiving, and arrived in mid afternoon.  A wonderful dinner, where Annie pulled out all her pent up culinary arts and amazed and delighted us all with turkey, a new and delicious stuffing, squash with bleu cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, cranberries and of course, a perfectly roasted turkey.   Oh yeah, a southern pecan pie and a pumpkin bread pudding that was soooooo good. We ate like kings and queens and had enough daylight and warm temps to take a walk of her neighborhood which never fails to delight me when I visit. 

We were fortunate to have gorgeous weather the whole of our time in Nashville.  Mornings were unrushed and late breakfasts were sumptuous, complete  with leftover turkey dinner fixings reborn as wonderful morning dishes.  We walked the neighborhood, visited antique shops and stayed away from anything remotely sounding like a "mall" or Black Friday.   We watched Michigan State beat Northwestern at a bar on the honky tonk row of Nashville's downtown area, and while there were tons of tourists outside, inside it was cozy as a small congregation of Spartan faithful gathered to watch our team win.  On Saturday evening because we were feeling a bit more courageous we took on Opryland to see the Christmas decorations and while it was very crowded, we took our time and enjoyed the lights and the decorations that make this a must stop for me when I am in Nashville at this time of year. 

We left Nashville, early Sunday morning in a drizzling rain that stayed with us all the way North to our home.  While it was good to be home after having warm sun, and new sights and our problems at bay for a time, they are still there.  Our dogs were happy to see us, and the land and our house seems so enduring there is a strength to that, and one I will try to tap into in the months to come.   We were blessed this time.  Our serendipity chance of a trip South, worked out right, nearly every mile of the way.  It won't always be that way and there have been times in the past and will continue to be times in the future where all will seem destined to failure, but its knowing that sometimes it does that makes intentions worth seeking....

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