A New Perspective

This morning I had an appointment with my dentist.  As I was getting ready, I was thinking about the experience ahead of me.  First of all, I don't like the dentist's chair.  I don't really like having to lay back;  since I suffered a concussion two years ago I sometimes get dizzy going from a vertical to horizontal position or vice versa.  And I don't think there's a person in the whole wide world who can honestly say that they enjoy going to the dentist.  Even though dentists are so much better today about making you as comfortable as possible, every time I have to go I still get knots in my stomach and I catch myself clenching my teeth.  But this morning something else was weighing on my mind.  It wasn't the possibility of bad breath or accidentally biting the hygienist's finger while trying to respond to her question.  No, what was striking terror in my heart today was the infamous overhead light!

All of a sudden I realized that any imperfection on my face would be illuminated like a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.  I could only imagine that the pores around my nose look like the craters on the moon's surface, the eyebrow hairs I missed look like the Amazon forest, and the circles under my eyes look like a raccoon's mask.  With the exception of my wedding day, I don't believe I have ever taken as much time putting on make-up as I did today.  But there's no foundation or concealer that can hide the zits that decided to pop up the night before.

Luckily the hygienist didn't mention anything about my pores or my unplucked eyebrows, or dark circles under my eyes.  All she really mentioned was my lack of flossing but considering what she had to look at while she worked, I figure that a little plaque wasn't so bad after all.

Today I will begin a new chapter in my life.  After following several blogs, I have decided to take the plunge and try my hand at this manner of keeping track of thoughts and feelings.  So many times during a day I catch myself wanting to write down what I'm thinking, and whether anyone ever reads what I write or not, I feel like this is something I want to try my hand at.  I'm hoping that the idea that someone might read what I write will be motivation for me to keep putting words down on paper.

As for today, I woke up to a cloud hovering outside my window.  The fog made normal things seem different; mysterious even.

   But as I walked out to get the morning paper I spied several white spots in the yard.  On closer examination, the spots turned out to be web-like structures in the grass.  They were not nearly as fine as a spider's web so I guess they were some other insect's creation.   But the irony of it all was that on a morning when the bigger picture was veiled in thick mist, the normally invisible threads of creation were in plain sight.  Just a little mystery to start my day and a gentle reminder of my plethora of blessings.

An abundance of fruit

This summer wreaked havoc on many of the plants in my garden and trees in our woods. We were able to help the vegetables along by using well water but I watched in despair as many of our maple trees started dropping leaves in July, when temperatures reached over 100 degrees and we went for months with no rain.  It's too soon to know if those trees will make it  but one tree in the yard defied all odds.  The huge pear tree on the side of the house not only survived, it has thrived!  This fall the tree is covered, from top to bottom, with pears.

The pears are not very big, and since I don't spray, they can be spotty and wormy.  But evidently the deer, or the squirrels, like to eat them because each morning there are a dozen pears on the ground with chunks of the juicy pear meat gone. Even Dozer, our rescued Golden, has been known to eat one.  But there are always a few pears each day that survived the fall from the tree intact.  I've taken to picking them up and collecting them in my pink plastic bucket.  Last week I had so many pears, I had to share them.  So I put the bucket, full of pears, at the end of my driveway.  If you stop by my house, be sure to help yourself.