Simply Thankful: Lessons from November

Photo 52, Week 47:  Thankful

When it became evident that I would be driving my kids to school this year 

instead of sending them out to the bus,

the thoughts that filled my head

were not necessarily pleasant.

Leaving the house at 7:15 AM in the dark and cold?

No thank you.

But somehow the most dreary days

are when I've seen things that have made me want to go back

and grab my camera.

And thankfully, some days I can.

November has been busy!

Some days I can't see the forest through the trees.
It has not been much of a blogging month.

But the month that I usually consider bleak and barren

has proven to be much more beautiful

than I typically notice from the safety of the kitchen window.

One thing I've failed to notice before

is the way the ice reflects light and color

before it is covered with snow.

And also, that once the lake is frozen and you can't skip stones anymore,

people apparently slide them across the ice for entertainment instead.

November also seemed to want to tell me this year

that brown is woefully underrated,

and that if I can't find a little color in my world,

I may not be looking hard enough
or in the right places.

Photo 52, Week 48:  Photographer's Choice

But maybe my favorite lesson
was that everything can change in the time it takes to walk around the lake.

May God grant you the gift of sufficient grace
 to find the color in your life
this Thanksgiving!

Comfort

Photo 52, Week 45:  Comfort

November in Minnesota begs comfort.

In my case, the extra few weeks of waking up to a little daylight 

thanks to standard time is comforting.

Even more so with some sweet creamer.

(I have also gone on a soup-making binge.)

(And baking.  Oh, the baking!)

We have had a long, gorgeous fall.  

It made up for the spring that never was.

But when November comes, we sort of hunker down.   

And we have no idea for how long.

We tend to turn inward for beauty,

even though it's still out there.

It's harder to find, and there is this nagging doubt that the effort will be fruitful

as you consider whether or not to find your gloves and put on your coat

to brave the elements.

Photo 52, Week 46:  Bumpy

But wow, the ELEMENTS!

The deer have found their comfort food.

We don't see them very often, but we know they have been here.

We have food that doesn't get buried under snow.

Lucky them!

And lucky us, because we also have comfort that remains long after the bottle of creamer is empty.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,

who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble

with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Praying today for comfort

for people experiencing all kinds of troubles.

Things that go bump in the night

This year, in the interest of getting my kids off the streets

before they were those too big trick-or-treaters
that people see coming and quickly turn their lights off,

I agreed to a party.
Because kids still want an excuse to dress up and eat candy.
Can you really blame them?

Bethany is getting this party planning business down to an art, 

thanks to Pinterest.

She and her friend made

Halloween mix

mummy dogs

(well, she appropriately made those with her mummy)

and goblin smiles.

Frankenstein welcomed the guests.

Of course, there were games and other festivities.

Who knew a group of middle schoolers would be so easy to have?
It was a fun, and relatively bump free night!

If I could talk with the animals...

This is a sight we have seen many times.

But only through a window.

Last week, we saw it up close and personal.

It's the home of the bears on the Grizzly Coast

at the Minnesota Zoo.
We frequently say that we love our zoo,
but on this particular day they loved us back!

The zoo is celebrating its 35th year
by holding monthly "Making Wild Memories" contests.
I sent in this memory of my tiger lover the first time I captured him beside one of the big guys.
It made me gasp a little.  But look at his big smile.

That same smile showed right back up when we won the contest
and got to go meet the bears face to face.

It was early on a characteristically gloomy Halloween morning,
and we got to be there to put out their special treats.
So after we fed them a little snack while they were still indoors,
we went out into their exhibit to get it ready for their arrival a little later.

Diana was our "boss" for the morning.

She helped us find good hiding places for the treats

(and reminded us to watch where we stepped).

We could not be of much help

bringing in the pumpkins for the bears to "carve".

They were massive!

Before long we cleared out so the bears could make their entrance.

They wasted no time getting busy.
Kenai...

Haines...

and Sadie...
each of them making quick work of their treasures.

We got to watch from the special viewing area up on top--very fun!

After the pumpkins got old, the bears started hunting for the other things we had left.

We're so spoiled to live so close to the zoo and visit often,
but this was a zoo day unlike any other.

Thanks so much to Josh and Diana for making it happen for us!
We're grateful for the day, and we truly appreciate what you do EVERY day.