Actually, I’m back from the trip, but I’m not a hip modern girl with a laptop and a tablet. I only have my phone. And that’s no way to write and post a blog each week. So, before I left home on May 21, I had to get three blogs ready to go out on the three Fridays I’d be away. So, let’s pretend that it’s three weeks ago, and I’m getting ready to leave. Okay?
I’m getting ready to be away from home for two-and-a half weeks. I’ll be sleeping in five different places. I’ll be in a couple of places only one night. I’ll be in another place for eight nights. And the other two places for the rest of the nights. So, as I’m getting ready to go, I’m having to think about how to pack light and how to re-distribute my stuff for the different places I’ll be.
I’d been a little busy, helping some friends, and Peter was here for a few days, but I’d been thinking about what all needed to be done. Thursday morning, I started pulling out the clothes, shoes, toiletries, medications, all the stuff that had to be packed and accessible. It took all day to get it all done and, mostly, packed. I meant to work Thursday evening on the waistband of a skirt I was taking. But, as often happens, I misjudged how long I would need to get the blog posts edited and scheduled and the e-mail reminders out. So, when I walked into my bathroom to finish the packing. Here’s what I found:
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- Yes. This is not a staged scene. This is exactly what my bathroom looked like when I walked in at 10:15 on the night before we were leaving town.
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- After a bit of work, things looked better. Not all that great, but better
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- This is what it looked like when I went to bed, having to leave out the things I would need in the morning.
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- I did stop before I walked out to the car and took this photo. Tidy again.
We drove to Memphis and spent the night with David’s Aunt Frances. When I went into her bathroom to get ready for bed, I found … a bit of a disaster.
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- In this close-up version, see how there’s a cute little bluish bottle, standing on end. That has face cleanser in it. Behind all the stuff in front, you can see an upside-down pink moisturizer bottle, draining down into another cute little travel bottle.
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- When it was done getting filled, I picked up the black lid and it didn’t fit. Of course. That was the pink container’s lid. I tossed it, as that container was empty now.
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- Then, at some point, in my late-night preparation stupor, I put the cute little bottle into my cute New York Subway travel zipper bag, and left on my trip.
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- When we got to Aunt Frances’ house and I went to prepare for bed, everything in the bag was slimy from moisturizer having leaked out of the upcapped travel bottle. So, for the next two and a half weeks, this is what the moisturizer bottle looked like.
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- And when we got home, I found, waiting patiently for me on the tissue holder, the *real* lid for the cute bottle of moisturizer.
The next day, we went on to Sevierville, Tennessee, to David’s mom’s. I re-grouped a little, and got ready to leave Sunday morning to go to a conference at Ridgecrest, near Asheville, North Carolina.
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- I’ve mentioned before that a pair of peacocks come and spend the spring and summer on my mother-in-law’s deck.
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- The male peacock is a proud and jealous guy, and will preen and strut when he notices that *other* male peacock on the deck (his own reflection).
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- David was *really* put out when we went out to the car on Sunday morning, to find that the male peacock, having seen *another* one of those pesky reflection-type peacocks in the car’s bumper, had pecked and attacked the front bumper (the *new* front bumper), even chipping a bit of paint off.
I drove off to North Carolina, where, to my knowledge, there aren’t any proud peacocks. The drive, through the Cherokee National Forest, is beautiful.
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- When I got up Monday morning, there were lots of clouds.
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- After breakfast, most of the clouds had gone.
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- By lunchtime, all sunny and clear.
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- Oh, yes. That’s the view from my window.
Tell the heavens and the earth
to celebrate and sing;
command every mountain
to join in the song.
The Lord’s people have suffered,
but he has shown mercy
and given them comfort.
Isaiah 49:13 (Contemporary English Version)
The Christian Writers’ Conference was good. The mountains were bee-you-ti-ful!! I left there on Wednesday afternoon and drove back to Sevierville to spend the night. The next morning, David took me to the Knoxville airport. The Knoxville airport is a calm, serene place, with lovely rocking chairs where one can sit quietly and rock and watch the planes land. I flew from Knoxville to Charlotte, where even in the calmest place on the calmest day, the word “serene” would never, ever, ever be used.