Perfect, Golden Day

What a great November 1.  I hope everyone else's day was just as wonderful as mine was.  I got to do some of my favorite things: take a run, sit outside for long hours, eating, writing, reading, and I got to work in the garden.  I guess I'm just a simple country priest; life doesn't get much better than that for me.

Above are two of the trees that I see from my front porch these warm, sunny autumn days.  And this is in my side yard:

Ah, the pictures are going in much better than the other night, when I couldn't get a single one to upload.  I'll just send another, of that first snow I referred to in my previous post:

I love the way the snow caught on the spider webs, but not the surrounding foliage.  Finally, my back porch:

The temperature today was about 70F, and the sun shone golden all day long.  My day had that sense of timeless spaciousness that I crave -- hours and hours stretching out, in which I can do exactly what I wish.  I wrote pages and pages in my journal, worked for about an hour and a half in the garden (got an incredible amount done in that time, including huge armloads of dried, dead flowerstalk, brush, and weeds.  There's so much more to do, but the time was incredibly satisfying, nonetheless.  Gardening really does feed my soul.  Funny, now that I'm sitting on the front porch to write these days, the front perennial beds get a lot more of my time and attention, and now the veggie garden goes begging.  I also moved some of my back porch "decor" to the front -- if I'm going to be sitting there, I want my eyes to rest on things that please me, especially since I've taken the house plants back inside.  I also gathered up some pine cones to put in wire baskets -- they'll sit out much of the winter, with sprigs of holly stuck in when it's closer to Christmas (the berries are just starting to turn red).  In summertime, the unshaded front porch is simply too hot to spend time on.  But in these days of Indian summer, it's the perfect place to be, especially with some good music on the itouch to mute the traffic noise.

So on this long, luxurious, perfect day, I thought:  Maybe this is it.  Maybe this is all God wants of us -- that we enjoy each moment we're in, stop to say a profound thank you, and try and spread the enjoyment around to others.  See the good news that's right in front of us, and then share that good news.  Wow -- could it really all be that simple?

Comments

[Britt-Arnhild]

Nothing can be compared to God's own palette.

[Darla]

Thanks for the recent blog visit. I love meeting new people on the 'net. It looks like you live in a beautiful part of the country. I'm going to read back a bit in your archives.

Darla

[Patrick Gracewood]

Have you read any Miester Eckhardt?
there's a quote of his that goes: "if the only prayer you utter is a simple thank you, that will suffice.
Lovely post, appreciate that reminder that time can be elastic and unhurried.
thanks.
Patrick

[Redondowriter]

Ann, I'm missing you. Come back and tell us how Advent is going.

[Redondowriter]

Just published your comments, Ann. Get thee back to the blog for the new year as a gift to an old friend, OK? I didn't get the book; I just made a different kind of treasure map. I guess these vision boards are something life coaches are using like it's a brand new thing, but it is a nice name.

Happy new year.

Love,
Fran