I have some friends who, when sharing some spiritual truth, will sometimes say something along the lines of, "Oh God must have really laughed at me when I made those plans," going on to explain how something they had planned had gone differently than they had envisioned -- the lesson being that God orders our steps.
Although I'm not sure God laughs at us (maybe He does; I just don't have any certainty of it), last week when I closed out my blog post stating how we would be going to Dallas, implying we would escape the wintery weather, He, being the all-knowing one He is, had to have known how things would ultimately turn out.
Which was much different than what we planned.
Wife and I set out last Thursday, one week ago today, at approximately noon, and arrived at Older Son and DIL's home in Dallas about 11 hours and 15 minutes later. Yes, it was a long drive, but Wife and I have always traveled well together and it was really quite pleasant.
We did find the weather more agreeable in Dallas. I enjoyed nice walks through Older Son's wonderful old neighborhood in shirt sleeves.
About mid-day Saturday, however, we began to hear weather reports saying things would turn nasty there in Dallas by Sunday. We were planning to leave Monday morning. We planned to stop by and see Wife's parents in Little Rock and have lunch with them, and then drive to Memphis to spend the night.
We listened attentively to the forecasts that became more ominous. Sunday morning I got up and ran -- in shorts, no less. When I got back to the house, Wife was looking at her phone, tsk-tsking about the weather. Rain would begin in the early afternoon and it would turn to ice overnight.
To summarize, we went to church, ate a quick lunch and hit the road in a driving rain about 1:30 p.m. We decided we did not want to risk getting stuck there.
We bypassed Little Rock, where it was beginning to snow, and headed east toward Memphis. We made it as far as Forrest City, Arkansas, about 70 miles west of Memphis. The snow was coming down steadily and our car thermometer told us it was 30 degrees outside, which was a good indication of why said snow was sticking to the ground and the road.
Wife called a nearby Hampton Inn and we got the last room. We left there about 10 Monday morning. Wife dropped me in Memphis so I could work in my office there part of this week, and drove home.
I arrived back here today. Nashville had more snow last night but today the temperature has finally risen above freezing and there has been significant melting. I talked to Older Son and he said it's still very cold in Dallas and they have hardly thawed out from the ice earlier this week.
Maybe God's laughing, maybe He's not.
But don't look for an announcement of any short-term plans here anytime soon.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
The ice cometh, man
We have just completed Day Three of our semi-confinement.
I'll explain.
All day Sunday the weather prognosticators were telling us we would have snow like crazy after midnight and into Monday. Expect five to eight inches, they told us. Around these parts, that's a lot of snow.
It was a holiday for me, so I was, quite candidly, hoping for the entire eight inches. It has been a long time since we had a really good snow so bring it on, I was thinking.
We awoke Monday morning and there was plenty of white but it was not snow; it was ice. And we were iced in, big-time. The snow took a detour to the north and we got the ice -- sleet and freezing rain -- and plenty of it.
Our driveway was one big sheet of ice, as was our street.
It was a work day for Wife but she generally works from home and she had a pretty light day. We had an enjoyable day and evening together.
Since I can also work a lot from home, I chose to do so yesterday (Tuesday). There was very little melting, and the plows had made it into our neighborhood, although not very much of our street.
Yesterday afternoon I told Wife I thought we should take the pickup truck out for a spin. I had parked it in the garage when all this started. I told her worst case, we would turn around at the end of driveway and put it back in.
We got around just fine. I carefully maneuvered the icy driveway and road to the point to where things had been cleared. We made a visit to Sonic and came home.
Last night we had about an inch of snow on top of the ice. The truck still handled fine but I could definitely tell a difference with the layer of snow now on the road. I drove to the Y (to get some exercise, trying to offset all of eating I've done since being housebound) and we made our trip to Sonic again this afternoon.
Wife is usually the one to get "cabin fever" in situations such as this but I'll admit that I've been the more restless one this time.
It's been bitterly cold and tonight it's supposed to be below zero. We are not used to that, folks. I don't know that I've ever experienced sub-zero temperatures.
We are scheduled to start toward Dallas tomorrow to visit Older Son and DIL, stopping half-way in Little Rock tomorrow night. It looks like if we can get out of Nashville, we'll be fine. That's our plan.
We have become well acquainted with winter this week and I can say, unequivocally, that I'm ready for spring.
I'll explain.
All day Sunday the weather prognosticators were telling us we would have snow like crazy after midnight and into Monday. Expect five to eight inches, they told us. Around these parts, that's a lot of snow.
It was a holiday for me, so I was, quite candidly, hoping for the entire eight inches. It has been a long time since we had a really good snow so bring it on, I was thinking.
We awoke Monday morning and there was plenty of white but it was not snow; it was ice. And we were iced in, big-time. The snow took a detour to the north and we got the ice -- sleet and freezing rain -- and plenty of it.
Our driveway was one big sheet of ice, as was our street.
It was a work day for Wife but she generally works from home and she had a pretty light day. We had an enjoyable day and evening together.
Since I can also work a lot from home, I chose to do so yesterday (Tuesday). There was very little melting, and the plows had made it into our neighborhood, although not very much of our street.
Yesterday afternoon I told Wife I thought we should take the pickup truck out for a spin. I had parked it in the garage when all this started. I told her worst case, we would turn around at the end of driveway and put it back in.
We got around just fine. I carefully maneuvered the icy driveway and road to the point to where things had been cleared. We made a visit to Sonic and came home.
Last night we had about an inch of snow on top of the ice. The truck still handled fine but I could definitely tell a difference with the layer of snow now on the road. I drove to the Y (to get some exercise, trying to offset all of eating I've done since being housebound) and we made our trip to Sonic again this afternoon.
Wife is usually the one to get "cabin fever" in situations such as this but I'll admit that I've been the more restless one this time.
It's been bitterly cold and tonight it's supposed to be below zero. We are not used to that, folks. I don't know that I've ever experienced sub-zero temperatures.
We are scheduled to start toward Dallas tomorrow to visit Older Son and DIL, stopping half-way in Little Rock tomorrow night. It looks like if we can get out of Nashville, we'll be fine. That's our plan.
We have become well acquainted with winter this week and I can say, unequivocally, that I'm ready for spring.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Top book picks
Although I'm a little late with it, I wanted to post a recap of some of my favorite books of 2014.
I read a total of 30 books last year. I don't set goals as to how many books I'll read. I just read as I can. I do try very hard for variety, and include some classics (although I didn't do well with that one last year) and non-fiction along with fiction.
My favorite fiction book in 2014 was Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, a beautiful coming-of-age story about two preachers' sons growing up in Minnesota in the 1960s. I found the adolescent theme to be reminiscent of A Separate Peace, with social justice tones that reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird (both of which are in my top five all-time favorites). I really can't recommend this book enough.
On the non-fiction side, my favorite was Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, which chronicles the stories behind the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It took me about 50 pages to get into it but once I did, it was a page turner. I don't know that I have ever learned as much from a book as I did from this one.
Other top picks on the fiction side were The Rent Collector, Orphan Train, The Fault in Our Stars (never saw the movie), The Invention of Wings, We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, The All Girls Filling Station Reunion ,The 100-Foot Journey (saw the movie with Helen Murin, which was very good, but the ending is completely different from the book), Gone Girl (didnt' see the movie and don't think I can because the book scared the poop out of me) and Grisham's latest, Gray Mountain.
Each Shining Hour is the second in the Water Valley Series by Tennessean Jeff High, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also read the last two in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon and The Handsome Man's Deluxe Café, both of which lived up to the charm I have found throughout this delightful series.
Jan Karon's latest Mitford installment, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, affected me the same as all of hers, finding myself in love with all the characters and becoming sad at the end that I could no longer continue the relationship.
I picked up Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time in a used bookstore in Maine last August. I tried. That's all I can say.
Lois Lowery's The Giver and Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men would not yet be called classics, but they are two my more challenging reads from 2014. Both were worth the effort.
Shauna Niequest is a young spiritual writer I mentioned in my recap last year. I read two more of her essay collections, Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet, and continue to be in awe of her insight and talent.
I already have a stack ready for this year. I started January with Boys in the Boat, a great story about the 1936 Olympic rowing team, and just finished How God Became King by New Testament scholar N. T. Wright (very deep and challenging and I probably need to read it again).
As always, too many books and not enough time.
If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears.
I read a total of 30 books last year. I don't set goals as to how many books I'll read. I just read as I can. I do try very hard for variety, and include some classics (although I didn't do well with that one last year) and non-fiction along with fiction.
My favorite fiction book in 2014 was Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, a beautiful coming-of-age story about two preachers' sons growing up in Minnesota in the 1960s. I found the adolescent theme to be reminiscent of A Separate Peace, with social justice tones that reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird (both of which are in my top five all-time favorites). I really can't recommend this book enough.
On the non-fiction side, my favorite was Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, which chronicles the stories behind the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It took me about 50 pages to get into it but once I did, it was a page turner. I don't know that I have ever learned as much from a book as I did from this one.
Other top picks on the fiction side were The Rent Collector, Orphan Train, The Fault in Our Stars (never saw the movie), The Invention of Wings, We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, The All Girls Filling Station Reunion ,The 100-Foot Journey (saw the movie with Helen Murin, which was very good, but the ending is completely different from the book), Gone Girl (didnt' see the movie and don't think I can because the book scared the poop out of me) and Grisham's latest, Gray Mountain.
Each Shining Hour is the second in the Water Valley Series by Tennessean Jeff High, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also read the last two in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon and The Handsome Man's Deluxe Café, both of which lived up to the charm I have found throughout this delightful series.
Jan Karon's latest Mitford installment, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, affected me the same as all of hers, finding myself in love with all the characters and becoming sad at the end that I could no longer continue the relationship.
I picked up Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time in a used bookstore in Maine last August. I tried. That's all I can say.
Lois Lowery's The Giver and Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men would not yet be called classics, but they are two my more challenging reads from 2014. Both were worth the effort.
Shauna Niequest is a young spiritual writer I mentioned in my recap last year. I read two more of her essay collections, Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet, and continue to be in awe of her insight and talent.
I already have a stack ready for this year. I started January with Boys in the Boat, a great story about the 1936 Olympic rowing team, and just finished How God Became King by New Testament scholar N. T. Wright (very deep and challenging and I probably need to read it again).
As always, too many books and not enough time.
If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears.
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