Do not neglect your gift…. Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress (I Timothy 4:14..15)
Excellent, encouraging, motivating words for this author! My wish for you also, the blog reader: may your path be made plain and direction clear this day!
My novel is at 203 pages! This is great progress. Today I do the third draft.
Adventure Number Two- I know it was an adventure because that’s what the kids called it when we began to take unexpected detours and meet challenges. We sat out bright and early enough on Wednesday morning, well provisioned with a picnic lunch of Andrea’s creation. Our first plan had been to hike Box Canyon near Ouray and then enjoy the hot springs. Our first need was to fill the gas tank. This I did with great confidence; knowing that my check had arrived at work about the same time we left town. Andrea had her wallet, Philip intentionally left his behind. I had a useless wallet containing a bunch of pennies and 210 cents in nickels and dimes. As we approached Ouray, I stopped at a last chance grocery store and added a bag of chips, cheese crackers and candy to our snack menu; and left a phone message for a cousin I believed to be vacationing in the area to see if we could meet up. Philip was beginning to proclaim, teenage fashion, that it was lunch time. When we neared Ouray I remembered our entry fee experience of the previous day and began to have second thoughts about Box Canyon. Further, Philip announced that he did not feel like hiking a second day in a row. We made an immediate right turn into the hot springs parking lot where I enjoyed lunch while contemplating huge goldfish and the kids delayed lunch by enjoying the skate park. After noon we window shopped at the gift stores, paid our hot springs fee (1/3 of what it costs in Glenwood), donned bathing suits and relaxed in the gigantic outdoor hot tub for an hour or more.
While window shopping we found a great little chocolaterie (with rest room) and bought 3 truffles; one chocolate raspberry (for Philip); blackberry (for Andrea); white chocolate / lemon (for me). That is, we tried to buy them. When the truffles were weighed, our total came to $2.79; but we could muster only $2.60 between us. The clerk, not wanting to put the edible merchandise back in the case or wait while we ran 4 blocks back to the car to check the ash tray (which we knew to contain only pennies); took pity on us and closed the deal for $2.60 rather than throw out the chocolates. So began the adventure portion of our day.
After the swim, the kids returned to the skate park for a few turns and then we headed back toward Montrose, where I knew of a delicious Chinese buffet. I sent them in to ask price as I hunted for a parking place. NINE DOLLARS per person? No thank you, we will just stop at the next MacDonald’s or Burger King and choose a few value items.
But, as we came into Delta, destiny overtook us. I looked up just in time to see “The Bucket List” playing at an historic downtown theatre. We took a turn around the block, found an easy parking space and joined the queue forming on the sidewalk. “Cash only” proclaimed the vintage sign. We stayed in line long enough to ask the location of the nearest ATM and ran a block to the teller. Finding the fee to be only $3.00, we decided to make the splurge. I balked at taking forty dollars instant cash, not knowing exactly how much that paycheck waiting for me was. Instead I took twenty. Uh, twenty. There are three of us. The tickets were $7.00. Twenty, huh? We knew, from our chocolate truffle experience, exactly how much we could scrape between the three of us. Having decided not to take out 40; was I now going to ask for an additional $20 with an additional $3.00 fee? No way! I had done some shopping for another party that afternoon and was able to temporarily borrow an additional dollar from the change. We were entertained by the movie, had a safe drive home. So ended the adventure – or so I thought. Picking up my check the following day reveled that I had earned $16.00 during the pay period. Ha! 16 dollars. Would I have even put gas in the tank if I had known that? Or would we have meandered around the house for spring break? Maybe the best surprise IS no surprise. Oh, well, my check will be doubly big next time; I’ve worked a lot the past two weeks just to cover for spring break.
Adventure Number Two- I know it was an adventure because that’s what the kids called it when we began to take unexpected detours and meet challenges. We sat out bright and early enough on Wednesday morning, well provisioned with a picnic lunch of Andrea’s creation. Our first plan had been to hike Box Canyon near Ouray and then enjoy the hot springs. Our first need was to fill the gas tank. This I did with great confidence; knowing that my check had arrived at work about the same time we left town. Andrea had her wallet, Philip intentionally left his behind. I had a useless wallet containing a bunch of pennies and 210 cents in nickels and dimes. As we approached Ouray, I stopped at a last chance grocery store and added a bag of chips, cheese crackers and candy to our snack menu; and left a phone message for a cousin I believed to be vacationing in the area to see if we could meet up. Philip was beginning to proclaim, teenage fashion, that it was lunch time. When we neared Ouray I remembered our entry fee experience of the previous day and began to have second thoughts about Box Canyon. Further, Philip announced that he did not feel like hiking a second day in a row. We made an immediate right turn into the hot springs parking lot where I enjoyed lunch while contemplating huge goldfish and the kids delayed lunch by enjoying the skate park. After noon we window shopped at the gift stores, paid our hot springs fee (1/3 of what it costs in Glenwood), donned bathing suits and relaxed in the gigantic outdoor hot tub for an hour or more.
While window shopping we found a great little chocolaterie (with rest room) and bought 3 truffles; one chocolate raspberry (for Philip); blackberry (for Andrea); white chocolate / lemon (for me). That is, we tried to buy them. When the truffles were weighed, our total came to $2.79; but we could muster only $2.60 between us. The clerk, not wanting to put the edible merchandise back in the case or wait while we ran 4 blocks back to the car to check the ash tray (which we knew to contain only pennies); took pity on us and closed the deal for $2.60 rather than throw out the chocolates. So began the adventure portion of our day.
After the swim, the kids returned to the skate park for a few turns and then we headed back toward Montrose, where I knew of a delicious Chinese buffet. I sent them in to ask price as I hunted for a parking place. NINE DOLLARS per person? No thank you, we will just stop at the next MacDonald’s or Burger King and choose a few value items.
But, as we came into Delta, destiny overtook us. I looked up just in time to see “The Bucket List” playing at an historic downtown theatre. We took a turn around the block, found an easy parking space and joined the queue forming on the sidewalk. “Cash only” proclaimed the vintage sign. We stayed in line long enough to ask the location of the nearest ATM and ran a block to the teller. Finding the fee to be only $3.00, we decided to make the splurge. I balked at taking forty dollars instant cash, not knowing exactly how much that paycheck waiting for me was. Instead I took twenty. Uh, twenty. There are three of us. The tickets were $7.00. Twenty, huh? We knew, from our chocolate truffle experience, exactly how much we could scrape between the three of us. Having decided not to take out 40; was I now going to ask for an additional $20 with an additional $3.00 fee? No way! I had done some shopping for another party that afternoon and was able to temporarily borrow an additional dollar from the change. We were entertained by the movie, had a safe drive home. So ended the adventure – or so I thought. Picking up my check the following day reveled that I had earned $16.00 during the pay period. Ha! 16 dollars. Would I have even put gas in the tank if I had known that? Or would we have meandered around the house for spring break? Maybe the best surprise IS no surprise. Oh, well, my check will be doubly big next time; I’ve worked a lot the past two weeks just to cover for spring break.
Live life like an adventure. Well, that sounds like fun; but I fear that my attitude more often lines up with the old Holiday Inn commercial which said, “The best surprise is no surprise.”
Both Andrea and Philip have been on spring break this past week and we really wanted to do something special. Florida and the beach maybe? No, that has never been in reach. Train ride to San Francisco? Dream on! A quick look in the bank account ruled out overnight trips altogether-we were lucky to find gas money to get Andrea home. So, on Tuesday we took a drive over the Colorado National Monument near Fruita; stopped to eat our picnic lunch at Artist’s point and then hiked to the Coke Ovens formation. It was a nice easy hike and our energy was a gift of the wonderful sunshine and our recent move to lower elevation. Returning to the fork in the trail, we decided to explore the monument canyon route; lengthy and more challenging. A quick check of Andrea’s IPOD at the floor of the canyon reveled that we needed to hoof it back to the car in order for Philip and me to arrive at work on time. Back UP the zig-zag trail we hurried. Whew! On arriving at the car we were relieved to find an hour to spare and disappointed to find a $7.00 entry fee waiting for us as we exited the national park. We learned two lessons: 1) National Parks charge all year long 2) Its not wise to take on a full scale hike before moonlighting at serving, bussing, and scrubbing floors Cinderella style. Philip and I ended up bone weary and exhausted.
So, Wednesday we did the only sensible thing: We headed for the hot springs and adventure number two.
Numbers 4 and 5 on the bucket list were: Bring joy to others and; have joy in my life. I think these two goals, or life ambitions, are inseparable. Ifs pretty hard to live a joyless life and have any joy to bring to others. Conversely, if one’s own bucket is full of joy, it is easy to splash dippers of joy all over the surrounding people. Joy is a thing that just spills out, so I don’t think there’s any point in hypothesizing a miserly person who keeps all their joy to themselves. Real Joy spills out.
I do think it is possible for a joyless soul to try hard to conjure up a false joy by dedicating themselves ceaselessly to others. In this case one’s joy, or mood, is dependent on the response or lack thereof in the receiving party. Real joy is not dependent on something as fragile as mood or response; nor is it synonymous with happiness or laughter – though I would like plenty of those in my life also.
OK, I’m off to gather a bucketful of joy so I can splash it liberally on others!
