Evidence of change

When you learn a new thing, it often takes a lot of time and effort in the initial stages to get the process under control. In other words, to reach a stage of automaticity. Learning how to get those bigger pictures into my journal is taking more time than I thought it would. I'm getting the help I need from our journals editor, but it just takes time. At this point, I have to read through the steps, repeat them, wait, test them... but it will lead to speed and expertness. That's what I'm counting on.

Which means I haven't got the pictures ready to put here this morning the way I had intended to. I did learn how to upload them from my computer to the Hometown File Manager, but while playing with them in my test journal, I found out that the pictures appeared much too large on the journal page. My next step in this learning process is to find out how to reduce these photos so they are less than 4 inches wide.

I'm going to use the AOL picture viewer again. Which is good this time because you can View Larger, and select Slideshow. It's more fun to see them in that format.

I took Misty to the vet this morning. She is having two lumps removed... one from her neck and one from her back. I won't know what they are until the pathology report comes back, but I was advised by the vet three weeks ago to get them both removed. She wasn't too happy when I left her there, and I wished I could have stayed until they put her to sleep, but that was a couple of hours away yet. It's noon. She's probably in the middle of the surgery right now, or at least, coming out of it. I will be able to pick her up after 4pm.

Max, on the other hand, was not happy when I left him behind, alone. He knew we were going for a ride in the car, probably became aware of that when I said 'Misty, let's go for a ride in the car!' He didn't understand why he couldn't go. He loves the ride in the car. He barked his little mini-schnauzer heart out as we walked away from the house.

When I came home, he was so anxious, so I took him outside. Grabbed my camera, and out we went for a little stroll through the woods and the yard.

I had planned to include four of the photos in the larger size, and the slideshow the rest. Like I said, I'm still learning the steps.

However, the reason I came to make this entry was to offer this startling observation: today I walked across the front yard for the first time in 17 years.

How could that be, you may ask? I've walked through our yard many times over the years, but today, I walked from the woods toward the house, across the portion directly in line with our front door.

For seventeen years, there has been a koi pond in the front yard. For all those years I have walked around the yard, around the pond. There was no straight line from the woods to the front door.

I didn't realize I was making this momentous trek until I was in the middle of the newly grown grass, still soft, the yellow straw beneath peeking through broad green blades. I stopped briefly and thought, 'I'm standing in the middle of the pond!'

And then, sadly: 'The pond is gone.'

(Good thing it was gone or I would have been standing in four feet of water!)

I turned to look at all the parts of the pond, the stones that outlined it at the ground level piled neatly around the base of a tree, the filtering system laid out to dry over near the creek, the liner also laid out.

The sound of splashing koi no longer turns my head, the waterfall is silent, and the resident water snake has found a new home somewhere.

Yet, peacefulness surrounds the place. I found new wonders of nature to ponder upon. Trees I did not know the names of, berries I had never noticed before.

Max led the way through the woods, for he had paths he knew, paths I didn't walk. He stopped to look back at me. I wondered what he did during the day when I didn't go outside with him. He seldom leaves our property, is always within earshot... except once in a blue moon when he runs to Marlene's house. We must have had a blue moon this week.

So I watched him, and did what he did. I looked at the ground. I poked into the grass. I studied critters that crawled in the leafy detritus on the ground. I noticed birds playfully pursuing each other amidst a pile of tree limbs, chirping. Squirrels chattered away above our heads, declaring us invaders. Max did not chase the critters he saw today. I think he would have if Misty were here.

Happily, I just received a phone call from the animal hospital. Misty is out of surgery, she is doing well. I'll take pictures when she comes home.

Now, I need to focus on the most important event of the summer: Vacation Bible School!

Bear with me. I will be writing about it as it progresses. We are having ours July 16-21. Fiesta! is our theme. Anyone working on that one?