Happy Hikers

I'm afraid I'm not much better at texturizing than I am at mudding and taping drywall.  But I think I'm good enough.  It is a messy messy process!  I'm standing on a ladder, up by the ceiling, flicking watered down joint compound onto the ceiling  from a scrub brush with my fingers.  And the joint compound goes everywhere.  It was in my hair, in my eyes, the floor is covered, along with all the cabinets and appliances.  The process hurts, too.  I had to stop yesterday because the bristles in the scrub brush started cutting open the tips of my fingers and all of a sudden the brush was pink.  Six bandaids later I tried again, but they wouldn't stay on.  It's no joke that I've poured blood, sweat, and tears into this house already.  I'm going to have to try a different method today, because my fingers are shot.

The home improvement projects are getting busy and a little crazy for the next two weeks.  We are getting a dumpster delivered in a few days.  I'm crazy excited about this.  It's also our anniversary weekend and let me tell you, we know how to keep it hot!  Eleven years is garbage and demolition for this lucky couple.  We are tearing out all the kitchen cabinets, appliances, flooring.  We are finally getting rid of the piles of junk the sellers left us.  The remaining cat pee drywall and subflooring will finally be gone. 

Ah.  Getting rid of the junk and mess will be so nice.  Even if it does take two weeks before we have a functional kitchen with running water again.  The upside about this is that we get to go out a little more than normal.  I'm really excited about that one.

Saturday Hubs had a day off and we drove over to the Columbia River Gorge and did a beautiful hike.  It ran along a creek and there was a beautiful, slightly hidden waterfall.  And beautiful rocky formations.  It was shady and cool by the creek and the boy found giant slugs everywhere. It was quiet when the girl wasn't yelping to get out of the backpack.  We walked.  We noticed the trees.  We stopped to let the kids explore the rocky cliffs and throw pebbles and chase frogs at the creek bed.  We heard the birds singing sweet melodies and watched hawks circle the skies.  We held hands and told jokes and smiled.  We thanked God for this wild and amazing world. 

It was a lovely afternoon and so needed.  The joy soaked into my bones and it is still here, radiating through my body.  Stepping out and disconnecting from the normal and SEEING the world is, for me, a necessary process.  I can feel the world chipping away at my soul day after day and there is nothing that heals me like a walk in the woods.  It is the nature.  The calm.  The unpluggedness of it all.  There are no agendas and no chores.  There is God's creation all before me and a yearning from within to look and SEE.  And not only see the splendor of the forests and skies but also of gifts before me each day that I take for granted at times.  Getting out into the wild makes me SEE my Little Man and Little Lady.  And Hubs.  When we hike, all becomes a gift.

Well, almost all of it.  The boy still whines about blisters and asks us eight million times for granola bars.  The girl fights to get out of the backpack, tries to run the other way, cries when we don't let her pick the poison oak.  And it can sometimes be a lot of work to see past all that in order to SEE.  But there is magic in the slugs and waterfalls and majestic trees and they call to us all and we soon stop worrying about the funny tag in the shirt and the dirt on the blankey and the whines and cries settle and we can all take a deep, clean breath and just be.  We seek and we receive Joy. 

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."  -John Muir