Randoms

Thank you, friends, for your kind words yesterday. You encouraged my heart, and I appreciated your tenderness with that story! Though the real-time mess of emotions was hard for a few days, God has been so very kind to me. While I don't love seasons of unending disappointment (who does!?!?), I know it is good for the soul to not always hear a solid stream of exactly what you want to hear. 

Yesterday was an extraordinarily good day, and I look forward to telling you more about that as I gather my thoughts about me.

But in the meantime, I have some random stories for you!

* Sunday, when we came home from church, we noticed a FedEx guy outside his truck in our neighborhood, trying to herd a possum off the road. We rolled down the window to talk to him and he said the animal seemed to be pretty sick and he was trying to get it out of the road. We went home and suited up to walk Lexi before the Colts game, and when we got back out into the neighborhood, we found that possum again! Though it was clearly sick and staggering, it picked up speed and interest when it saw Lexi, so we quickly did an about-face and went another way. I can now add "running away from sick possums" to my list of life experiences. (The police promptly picked up the animal, by the way.) 

* It snowed here yesterday. As of the time of writing this post, it hasn't snowed measurably at our house, but it did just that not too far from here. Not too far at all. I am not ready. We've had such a stunning, warm, delightful fall. I have enjoyed every second of it. I am not ready for winter when it's still mid-October. 

* I went to the dentist yesterday and got a great report. (Most of you know that dental visits are big deals for me and good reports are akin to a miracle.) I was having such a good day when I went in that I told the dentist I was only accepting good news and if he had anything else to offer, I'd just come back another day. Ha! He kept up the good news streak for me, and I appreciated that. He asked how my crown was doing. (I had that put on back in March, if you didn't know.) I told him I was scared of it, but it was doing beautifully. He asked what I meant by that, and I told him I was afraid it might break, so I tried not to use it unless I had to. I'm not sure he knew what to do with that!

* We started a new sermon series at church, and Sunday pretty much blew my mind with learning some details about the book of Esther. For such a little book, it sure has a lot of hidden details in it. It reminded me of the joy of always having something new to learn about Scripture! (I'm into Joseph's story now in my own daily studies, and I'm learning new things there, too!) If you haven't done a deep dive into Scripture lately, I absolutely encourage you to try. You're never too old to learn more!

* Ryan and I have been binge-watching Without a Trace in our evenings. Neither of us ever watched the series when it aired originally, so this is a new find for us. Ryan cracks up at how invested I have become in the main characters. I have regular feedback for them about their lives and personal choices, and he sometimes says to me, "You know these people aren't real, right? It's just a show?" Mmmmmkay. Whatever you say. 

* One of my Instagram friends (who I do know in real life from my IWU days) is a marathon-runner. She has a goal of running a marathon in all 50 states and this week ran in her 15th state. I messaged her to see how many marathons she has run in total, even if some were in the same state, and she said this past one was her 20th. But she didn't start running until after her daughter was born, so I think she's only done this for maybe 6-7 years. Anyway. I saw on her post about this most recent marathon that she just signed up for it a few days before the actual race. I cannot imagine being in the kind of shape that would allow me to sign up for a marathon right before running it. That is wildly impressive! Super proud of her!

So....that's my random news for today! Happy Tuesday, my friends! If you're in the suddenly-winter zone, STAY SAFE!!!!!