Emissions 'FAILED'!

Well, there is always a first time for everything. With 29 years of married life I suppose we have gotten off easy.
My plans for the day cut short.
Going on to the repair shop to get an estimate took up my morning. Choosing to go on ahead and get the estimate Steve met me there.

SHOCK!

So far $1000! with a possible few hundred more to come.

The old 1999 Chevy done met a tab 1/6 th of its value.

It is now that the debt free life style is a real gift. We had set aside an emergency fund that will almost cover it.

Our vacation is still set for the Disneyland tickets are purchased. 

The taxes just came back with an error. Seams they owed me $300 more and paid us that. So at least the expenditure is softened a little. Strange I was calm over it. When Steve got there however it was then that I realized that this was the same company that took us on the car. We sorta got our money worth but the issue never was resolved. We trust just a bad mechanic. This is the other branch of the company. We have faced all sides even doing it ourselves. The registration time line met with a 100 miles to put on it before compliance sets us to have to hire or risk ticket driving it to fix it ourselves. Over a barrel!

Still feel sorta calm, but not knowing what this suction test in the morning will reveal leaves us shaky.

Oh LIFE!

It is a good life. Just the every penny budgeting left me tired of the intensity of the task. We just can't deny the respite in June. Maybe we will cut it shorter.

Days are good here. Life is sweet, kids are well. Chores implemented have left a good since of mission and competence for the kids. They are really settling into it well. They are both respecting the education given them in this fine country. I delight in that. Leaves us feeling competent in instilling that in them. Today Doves teacher asked OUR Dove to tutor a kid with his Social Studies because she got an 'A' on her report. She is starting to think about College! Impressive student is just really encouraging us. Seams her Special Needs are not stopping her. Bless GOD!

Dove goes to camp for three days two night starting Monday. First time to ever do this sort of thing. Her 6th grade goes up North to do a science camp.

Dash touched my heart sweet. At supper prayer he told God "I hope everything is good for you too".

Felt like a warm blanket. Man I love it!

We had Steve's folks over on Saturday to watch the kids hunt eggs in the yard. I am unable to find the pictures Steve took. We had a nice evening on the cool of the porch. Peaceful.

 Easter was different but nice. The big meals of the past exchanged with a simpler style. The kids were happy to get some webkins. After a prayer request and a budget that was halved, there in a basket half price! Exactly the critters (and only those two) that I over heard the kids in play saying they wanted to "adopt". Two days later...chazam!

 Dove wore her dress to church as did I. Finally finished the blue dress for myself.

We had these eggs that were filled with confetti when your crushed it over the head confetti flew. We had a real kick until daddy man said "time for church" we had to get it all out of our hair. Wet blanket!

 

(We don't see Dash in shorts very often. His knees really show the scurvy of his infancy. He is VERY shy about it. Seams someone will always say something to him. Just cringe when they do.)

We were invited by my best friend and her family over for swim and feast in the afternoon evening. My other best friend and her family was there too.  A dear old friend we had not spent time with in years. Met two other families. One with an internationally adopted daughter. Girls really hit it off. This child had a missing limb, no matter children are blind to it when they get taught. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Let others be strong for us and we be strong when they are week.
It has been so so long that I have been a bit of a recluse. Times have hit me that way for a while here. Guess it has been a time to heal.
There is a time for everything under the heavens.

Sweet pup is not the same with Rena (our Golden) passed away. He misses her. He has now become my right hand friend. Laying now at my feet. He is a real good dog. Steve is really enjoying him too. Having to put Rena down really hit us all hard.

Well the emissions failed but God never has failed us. Even if it might seam we fail him.

Dove hit her goal!

With only a few weeks left our sweet daughter made her goal of getting 100% on a math test!
She has worked so hard and has not been able to get there and this time she did. This is very encouraging for she is in the lower level for her grade. Now she has more confidence to be able to move up to the next unit.
What a wonderful thing to see her have a mission and make competency after such a long hard efforts, were talking 8 months work here!

Morning in the flower garden

 Lightening rod

Great silence in the garden. 

Admiring beauty that slips through the cracks.

Those that might be yanked out by any other, me...well I like to water them.

They are seen on long drives through the forests.

Those majestic pines growing taller than any around them.

Those standing tall on the highest crest.

Beautiful, admired from a far.

Those that speak out of the soil of which they are made.

Those that are the lightening rods of this earth.

 Those that are to others weeds.

Annoying little things, treated as Credents (ancient city of Crete, despised).

If the bloom dare to rise up in a pristine disclosure the ugliness of life gets exposed.

Some neighbors see it as weed.

While others 

(who I believe are more enlightened) 

are grateful to be exposed to it.

 Beauty takes work. 

It takes work to hold on to ones own beauty as well.

 Beauty emerging from a shelter as a mother plant guarding a flower until it is established.

 Before beauty is the amazement of complexity.

 'Pinks' may be lavender yet non the less centered in beauty.

 Light captured shining through us.

It is then the glow be noticed.

As passers by slow to give eye.

 Focused up close looking deeper.

Being seen.

Can feed be excepted to soil when dust is dry?

Perhaps it will only burn any roots left living.

If feed be given to a life that needs only poor soil to survive...does it stop to thrive.

 Vantage...

It all comes down to vantage.

 We error only when we stop from trying.

Should soil be left alone for them who need no rich, nor want no fertile grownd to grow.

It is then set apart for another spot in the yard.

Non less to tend to...non less of beauty.

Pretense needs neglect to thrive, no truth no real exchange.

Self sufficient living only on what is within the soil underfoot.

 Bare spots  from soil to rich, to fertile...to honest.

One rich, one scraggly yet both beautiful.

 Reaching to the sky, shadowed left smaller.

Faces longing for the full sun.

Faces that will follow the sky are called proud.

That is how the sunflower is known.

Because it has the audacity to put it's face to the sun?

Yet look at those that linger there, in the shadows, not quite able to reach full potential.

 Ones mans vantage,

and then an others.

Lightening rods those trees that stand up tall exposed more than all the others.

Lightening rods risking demise death by just living.

These trees non better just sitting on higher ground or in the earth deeper than another.

Tapping deep into the life flow. 

Some even as a shelter to others. 

Yes they are exposed set to die if struck, and in so doing gives a grounding to the energy that flows.

That force that glows and cracks through the skies that surround it.

Once they are gone just think who will replace them?