From the past

So young and innocent (though we were having a blast being adults that summer).

Today I'm going through lots of pictures from the past.  It's a bit rough on the emotions, but also incredible to reflect back.  Here's a favorite from one of the best summers of my life.  Look at me...well, I guess it was 10 years ago.  How?

Bites

I currently have a mosquito bite on the back of my upper thigh and a fire ant bite on the fleshy part of my left ring finger.  The are both highly inconvenient places to have bites, let me tell you.


This is my 4th fire ant bit so far and I'm not feeling happy about them.  (See that picture? Actually, hard to see in the picture, but I'm not taking off my new bandaid to take a new one.  This is 3.5 days since I got the bite, the swelling is gone but the pussy welt will be around for a few more days.)

But they've played an important role in remembering as they've bothered me the last couple of days.  You see, I knew this would happen.  Last December as I talked to my parents about my life-changing, in-a-couple-of-hours decision to move to South Carolina, I was crying to them about the bugs.  Vermont doesn't really have bugs.  And I'm a huge fan of that.  Roaches, ants, fire ants, spiders, all those lovely things they have in the south.  I've lived in the south before and I knew what was coming.  And sure, enough, I was right.  There are a lot of bugs here.  And some of them bite me.  And some of them (the ginormous--should have been a tarantula but didn't have hair--spider that I saw while mowing my lawn) just give me asco.

As I was dealing with the bites yesterday I couldn't help but remember when I was crying about bugs because I knew I was moving and it was the right thing but I hadn't had time to prepare for it. (And my parents were so kind and respectful even though I suspect they were thinking--you're making a life-changing decision and you're whining about bugs right now?)  Because I was right about the bugs.  But I was also right to trust the feelings that the Lord was leading me.  Because this is so right for me right now.  And I am happier and more content than I have been in years.  Maybe I'll write more about that in the days and weeks to come.  But right now, just take my word for it.  Life is SO good for me.

So if it takes a nasty, pussy fire ant bite and a highly inconvenient mosquito bite to remind me how blessed I am....I can do that!

Vermont

You know you're in Vermont when half the passengers are carrying skates.

(They made me chuckle. The dad who is waiting outside the glass, watching his cute hockey player until she leaves is going to make me cry.)