The View from Soccer Practice

Here is tonight's sunset captured, amazingly enough, on my phone's camera. I went to take a photo with my trusty sidekick point-n-shoot and discovered that I had forgotten to take the battery out of the charger and actually put it into the camera. So, I was left with a deep sense of unfulfilled artistic urgency but no tools. I considered writing about it but I didn't want to take that much time away from trying to catch up on my book group reading. So, I fiddled around with the camera settings on my phone and was pleasantly surprised to find a decent image. It really was a beautiful sunset, and every time I looked up from my book while turning the page, everything had shifted and become a different, yet equally beautiful panorama. I am grateful I had the margin in my day to be able to take it in, because many's the day when the sun rises and sets with no notice from me. So, the days when I really get to notice become special-evidence that life is still good.

The new room, which seems to be known in my head as my own Sequestered Nook (that is the name of the online book group I belong to), is just about finished. I am still experimenting with some pictures on the wall and getting rid of the last of the sorted clutter and oh, it's going to be lovely. The sort of room I've dreamed of all my life. It will make waiting for the real kitchen a lot easier. The impetus for this rather sudden room re-do is that my pal Sara comes in from Seattle tomorrow night and we needed a guest room. Normally, we put guests in the family room, but since I am teaching Seminary on Thursday before Sara and I leave for New York, it wouldn't work for her to stay in there. Thus this flurry of activity. It has been immensely satisfying to get rid of about 8 garbage bags and two big shredders full of junk. So, thanks, Sara for being a good enough friend and visiting my house for the first time ever so that I felt highly motivated to make things nice for you...I can do anything when I have a deadline.