Overt thankfulness

When I woke up this morning, Jim and I had a conversation about what we wanted to accomplish today.  I had a few things i wanted to try with the rabbits, he had a couple of things with some brush he wanted to finish trimming and burn up, I needed to get laundry done, and we absolutely, desperately had to get groceries.  I also said I wanted to eat dinner and sit and watch the season opener for KSU.  We started in working together on rabbits, did a few other things at the barn, I remembered that I had to go get Saige, who spent the night at a friend’s house around the corner.  Jim volunteered to go since he wanted to drive Quincy’s car, which has been acting up!   We had a little lunch. Jim said he was going to work out in the back yard, and when he was done, we would run to get groceries together.  I set out doing some house work, keeping an eye on Jim since he had a fire going, and a chainsaw running.  I had a text from Preston who was excited to be attending today’s game as an official wildcat!  

I also went out to clean the pool filter and noticed my little watermelon is getting bigger!   

After a while, Jim hosed down the fire- which I watched him do.  With everything put out, we took showers, asked the girls if they wanted to run to town (they didn’t- as they were both cleaning their rooms and didn’t want to stop)  and we headed to pick up some groceries.  

My little nephew Lawson - he was staying with my mom today.   Isn’t he so cute?  Sorry that had nothing to do with the story I was telling here.   Commercial interruption if you will.   

I had made arrangements with Mallory to take a few more senior pics of Quincy this evening.  I drive by this yard every day on the bus.  It belongs to a friend of ours.  She is a florist and has an amazing knack for designing stuff.  Her yard is no exception.  I texted her “I know this is weird but could we use your yard as backdrops for Quincy’s senior pictures?”   She thought it was funny and told me to knock myself out.  

While we were shopping, Madison texted to ask if they could come over for a while.  Evelyn wanted to come to visit.   And at the same time, Andrew texted Jim to see if he could come out to go fishing.   They were going to watch part of the game and then go. 

With the girls over, I made tacos and we all had dinner. We got the game up and I just started watching when Mallory decided it was time to go take the photos.  When we returned, Jim and Andrew left to go fishing.  As they were leaving, Jim called to say it looked like the fire had spread and asked if I would go down and check.  That’s when I realized the fire had indeed spread!  It had burned off the entire dam area, it had spread into the cedar trees behind the dam and north.  How it didn’t get much worse, causing an absolute blazing inferno, I have no idea.  Cedar trees burn like crazy and we have a bunch of acres of sold cedar right there where this fire was burning unchecked.  To say we got lucky is an understatement.  We were definitely being watched over today.  We don’t even know when it happened, could have been while the girls were home alone.  Could have been while we were all sitting around eating tacos. All I know it  was still hot, the girls and I bucketed many, many buckets of water and poured it on logs that were still burning on the forest floor, and I had a mini panic at how overwhelmingly grateful I was that this wasn’t a huge catastrophe.  Truly terrifying.  And thanks be to God for watching over my family and house today.   

And since it is late, and I am a little emotionally drained, and overwhelmed I Am going to close with this.  Mallory worked really hard today to get some absolutely stunning pictures of Quincy. Her talent, and her work, and patience is so appreciated.  Quincy likes some of the pictures she took!   I love them.  I had fun taking photos of them taking photos. Also I appreciate our friend and neighbor who allowed us to use their amazing yard as a backdrop for these pictures!   And on the way home, we killed a rattler.  That’s a good day right?   

Thankful, blessed, overwhelmed and exhausted. Good night.  Tomorrow isn’t going to be near as exciting. At least I hope not!