Doyle found a honey tree when he was out getting wood on Saturday with Pete and Bil.  And then today, everyone came over to the house to see the honey and the comb that was still in the tree trunk.  Beth took pictures of it because I left my camera in Santa Fe.  Here is a picture of the honey still in the comb.  It looks like an exotic fish, or a coral reef or something other than a honey comb, or a snake skin up close.......ewww.......  Doyle is still trying to separate the honey from the comb, it smells delicious and tastes marvelous.  The bees were long gone, it was an abandoned hive.  Where did the bees go?  Did they die, or re-locate?  We'll never know what happened, but what a delicious treat they left behind.

I'm a little late wishing my favorite people a Happy valentine's day....but then I'm not sure just one day is enough to express my love and appreciation to my husband of 34 years (and counting!).  He has been the joy of my life and I thank God for him.  We were telling Candace the other day how after you've been married for so long you can complete sentences for each other, and know what the other person is thinking.  It's uncanny, but an obvious way of realizing that "one flesh" is very real after you've been married for years.  I can remember my parents talking about the same thing and I always loved to hear them talk about each other with so much love and affection. 

So.....even though I didn't buy anything expensive and even though we aren't even going out to eat (not sure I would want to on this day!), I just want Doyle to know that he is my very special "valentine" and I am so thankful God gave him to me.

My other special valentines have to be my adult children and their spouses and the grandchildren.  How nice of God to give us young children to love as we get older.  The first time around it is so much work and I was always so busy just making sure they were fed, clothed and relatively polite.  But with grandkids................they are perfect just because they ARE!!!

Happy Valentine's Day to my family and friends.  (If you are reading this, this special day was made with you in mind!).

Candace is our most recent house guest.  She came to us from University of St. Francis in Albuquerque, NM and she has fit in our family wonderfully. She is here for six weeks and is in the Physician's Assistant program.   She loves Daniel and Jonathan and the other day she bought bubbles for the boys and she and Daniel had so much fun blowing them and catching them.  I don't think Daniel had played with them recently (if at all) and he had so much fun trying to catch them.  At the same time I got down the dollhouse and furniture for Jonathan to play with.  Both the dollhouse and the furniture are old.  The style of the furniture looks to be from about the 1930's.  I've been saving the dollhouse, etc. until Jonathan was old enough to play with it.  We set it up next to the piano after he left and I imagine much fun will be had with it. 

Winter time, bitter cold, snow and wind are great times for the simple pleasures of playing.  So get out the bubbles, the old dollhouses and the puzzles and enjoy some free, fun simple playtime!  (Bonus....grandchildren!)

 
Bitter cold this morning...
kitty footprints in the snow,
birds eating bread and seed from their feeders
..........it's winter-time in New Mexico.

Doyle and I have started to play "Farkle" in the mornings, right after breakfast while we drink our tea.  I've come to the conclusion playing this game with Doyle, that how we play the game explains a lot about each of us.  Mostly, that I am cautious (I'll bet no one knew that!)    And Doyle?  I'll bet you didn't know that he likes to take risks!  Anyone that knows him knows that he doesn't mind "living on the edge".  He would say though that he thinks very carefully about the risks he takes and the edge-living.  So, we roll the dice, I'll get 500 points first roll, I could roll again and usually opt for keeping my points.  He on the other hand, will roll 500 points and risk it all to see if he can get more points.    I wish I could say I always win playing cautiously, and he always loses playing risky, but it's usually 50-50.  So it seems in life we should be willing to take risks as well as live cautiously at times.  We are good for each other, pushing and pulling each other back or towards  the precipice at times.   Life would be a total bore if we were always cautious and life would end up in a mess if we were always acting out our risk taking.  Wisdom is what is called for in this "game of life."

The icicles hanging outside our greenhouse late at night....they show me in a visible way that I am to be "light in the darkness."  This can mean many things not the least of which was told me today by my daughter, that girl that is a gift to me in such a tangible, and for real sort of way.  She is a light at her workplace, a place that should be a "light" in the dark world, but more often than not is just the opposite.  But I reminded her today as I listened to her stories of the people that work with her that God is using her.  He is using her to be a light for Him.  She told the story of a man who she was paired with on Sunday during inventory.  Everyone else laughed and poked fun of her when they heard who was to be her helper that day.  He is older (old enough to be her father) and he reeks of alcohol and he stinks and his clothes are tattered and rumpled.  She confessed that when they laughed and made fun of him, her heart went out to him.  So they worked all day on Sunday (the day they normally would have off), and she listened to his story, of drugs in the 1960's, bad choices, travel all over the world, a college education and poor choices, of being a photographer many years ago for Playboy and how he was a person with a lot of potential........and years of poor choices later, here he was working in retail, alongside, my daughter who listened.  She said as the day got longer and later, he got louder and he was embarrassing and people were laughing behind their backs, but she kept listening and at the end of the day, he hugged her and thanked her for being his "partner" and she wanted to cry.  I told her as I tell anyone that wants to hear...........just listen to people, they are lonely, they need comfort and community....and the way to show God's love to people is to usually "shut-up" and just listen.  She wonders what she's doing there at the store, she wants to leave and quit, but I tell her (and she listens), you are doing God's work, you are a light in the dark world.  (And I think to myself, if we would all just listen and look past the smell and the dirt, the world would be a lighter place.)

We have had some extraordinary icicles this winter, and the ones in our pergola were no exception.  The pergola had about six inches of snow on the roof for over two weeks, and when it started to melt, the icicles were huge and beautiful.  It looked so unreal, I'm sure if I were creative I could have done something amazing with the pictures, but alas they are just on my computer.  We heard of one man who got hit with a falling icicle last week and ended up in the hospital.  The icicles have all melted now though.  They were beautiful while they lasted though.

Life is an adventure full of endless and wonderful possibilities.  It can also be difficult at times, sometimes for no apparent reason at all.  I have been reading my mother's letters, written to me as a young wife and bride in the 1970's.  It struck me how similar she and I are (and my sister also).  She wrote one day of how she woke up one morning in a good mood, went to work, took a little nap and woke up depressed.  And I thought to myself, that happens to me too, for no apparent reason.  She mentioned in the letter how the depression had no rhyme or reason, it just was.  I have learned in my life one important lesson from this....sometimes as quick as it comes, it can go just as quickly.  Who is to say, why it comes, and why it goes.  I know it brings me to my knees in prayer as I hate to be depressed.  I do know it comes a lot when I get over worked and emotionally exhausted.  It happens often in January, on the heels of the Christmas holiday.  I know it happens to a lot of us.  One of my favorite ways to deal with depression (and I'm talking about mild depression here), is to pray (always the best way to deal with any depression) and then get busy.  I have done a lot of cleaning and baking during my times of feeling down.  Reading is also a great way to recover, and I've been reading a lot lately.  Good thing I love to read!

Tomorrow a young woman moves in to our house for six weeks.  We've never met her before.  She attends the University of St. Francis in Albuquerque and will be doing a six-week stint at the hospital in Farmington.  She wants to be a Physician's Assistant.  We look forward to meeting her and hope we are a blessing to her.  Life is always an adventure when you decide to be hospitable.  I decided as a young bride that I wanted my home to be an "open home".  God took me at my word, even though I had no idea what that meant.  Now, 34 years later, and more than 40 people later (who have lived in  our home for a season), I can honestly say that this has been the greatest thing I ever decided.  Has it always been easy?  Absolutely not!  Has it been inconvenient?  You bet!  But doing what God called me to do so many years ago, has been a blessing to Doyle and I.  I have one regret though.  I wish I had kept a "guest book" and had people sign it.  I can't remember all the people that have come through my doors, and that makes me sad! 

So, today I spent the day cleaning and getting ready for our new house guest.  May she find our home a peaceful refuge from a crazy world!

The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him....(Lam. 3:25)
Wait on the Lord............He shall strengthen thine heart.  (Psa.. 27:14)
Wait on the Lord and He shall exalt thee..............(Psa. 37:34).

Slow me down Lord!  Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.  Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.  Give me, amidst the confusion of my day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.  Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory.  Help me to know the magical, restoring power of sleep.  Teach me the art of taking minute vacations....of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to read a few lines from a good book.  Remind me each day of the fable of the hare and the tortoise that I may know that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed.  Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.  Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life's enduring values that I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny.  In Jesus' name, Amen
-Unkown.

The above is an old fashioned and quaint way of saying that my wish for you this New Year is that we take this new year that God has given us, be thankful for it, slow down and enjoy it and learn to live each day to the fullest.

One of the traditional treats around the Meyer house is a pastry called "Almond Sticks".  The recipe has been handed down to us by Doyle's mom, who taught Christopher how to make it.  Christopher has made it every year for the past few years when he comes home.  This year he taught Erin and Megan how to make it.  Well, they have helped in the past, but hopefully Erin will be able to make it on her own.  Megan of course can keep on helping Christopher make it.  These "sticks" are rich and yummy, but you can't eat a very big piece of them.  Doyle's mom sells them every year at a Christmas Bazaar at the Senior Center where she volunteers.  She sells out of them all the time, and anyone who has had one knows why.

Everyone made it home safely after the Christmas holiday and we have battled with frozen water  pipes for the past few days.  We were without water for two days.  My sister and her husband were without running water for four days (I think) and Pete and Heather have cold water but no hot water yet.  Pipes have been frozen all over the state.  We've had the second coldest day on record (they've been keeping records for 33 years here) in the last few days.  At our house on Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. the thermometer registered 18 below.  It was COLD!