Tag Archives: sunny

Jan 29

Take Your Eyes Off the Problem

Challenger Anniversary

This past week was the 37th anniversary of the Challenger explosion.  I was a child when the explosion happened, but I still remember it well.  The photo I’ve shared was taken at the Air Zoo Museum down near Portage MI.  My parents, Ben and I all went on a trip there a few years ago, and I found myself drawn to their exhibit.  As a young child, astronaut had been near the top of my career choices.  I admired Christa McAuliffe because she was a teacher and an astronaut, two of my top career choices.  I remember feeling great sadness the day she died, even though I’d never actually met her. 

Time is such a funny thing.  In some ways, it still feels like the Challenger explosion happened yesterday, and in other ways, it feels like it happened a lifetime ago.  So many big events in life seem to be that way. 

Exercise and a Little Sunshine

With winter in full swing, it’s been difficult to get outside to exercise in the way I like to.  I’ve been finding our basset hound puppy is great exercise, especially because she loves to play tug-of-war and will play with me as I walk.  We have so much fun, and it’s been a great way to get energy out for both of us, me walking the house with her pulling on a toy as I walk.  It’s also a really great way to strengthen my muscles.  She weighs over 50 lbs and is a very strong dog.

It’s been nice to see a little sunshine too.  The clouds have been hanging on, with very little sun this winter.  We’ve had a few days where the sun peeked out for a short time.  It’s bitter cold outside, but beautiful at the same time. 

Take Your Eyes Off The Problem

This week, one of our dogs got the tie-out she was on wrapped around a tree.  Our yard is not fenced in, so we either walk the dogs on a leash or let them out on a tie-out if they want out.  Our basset hound puppy is learning how not to get tangeled around trees outside, but this week, she found herself wrapped around one with the tie-out.

Around and around she went, trying to make the problem better, but it just made it worse.  I tried to help her, but she still kept going the wrong way as she tried to solve the problem herself.  Finally, I went inside and brought out a treat.  It took her eyes off the problem for a moment.  Carefully, I led her round and round the tree, keeping her eyes on the treat as we slowly got her untangled.  Once she was free, she ran excitedly back to the house. 

After I thought about this situation later, I realized the problem was solved when she took her eyes off it.  It reminded me of our own lives.  Too often, I focus on a problem.  I want to get unstuck from something, so I go round and round until I find myself tangled up even worse than I was to begin with.  It’s only when I take my eyes off my problems and focus on where God is leading me that I can get unstuck. 

People have often told me they don’t understand how I’ve handled things as well as I have with everything going on.  It’s not that I don’t have bad days, I do.  It’s that I keep coming back to the One who can truly handle my problems, the One who has the solution.  So even on the really tough days, when I’m hurting, or frustrated and just don’t know what to do next, I can lean on the fact that my Father in Heaven knows exactly what to do, even if I can’t see it.  It’s trusting in that that is hard.  Sometimes it feels like it’s easier to just keep trying on my own, keep going around and around and maybe one of these times I’ll get it right and things will go like they should.  But they don’t.  It’s not until I take my eyes off the problems and focus on the One who can truly guide me in the right direction that things begin to turn around.  It’s easier said than done.  On the really bad days, it’s hard to remember that there’s a God in charge of the situation no matter what I’m facing.  But when I take my eyes off the problem, I truly am set free. 

Jan 15

Catalyst

The Sun Will Shine Again

We’ve had a beautiful week here in North-west lower Michigan, finally getting some sunshine. Michigan isn’t known for its sunny days, especially in winter and this winter has been very cloudy. I’ve seen some reports saying we haven’t had a full day of sun since November, and it’s been weeks since we’ve really seen the sun at all. This week, the sun came out for several days. We enjoyed walks outside, and a beautiful stary night in January.

It felt strange to be able to walk around outside in January. We often have several feet of snow this time of year, so having bare ground and not needing snowshoes to get around feels odd. It was really nice to be able to spend so much time outside this week though, without worrying about a lot of snow gear, or getting worn out quickly in the deep snow. I don’t know what lies ahead. We will likely get a lot more snow and cold temperatures in the days ahead, and probably a lot of cloudy days too. But eventually, the sun will shine again. There is beauty even in cloudy days, and they will not last forever. The sunshine this week was just what we needed to start off the New Year! A photo dump from this week:

Catalyst:

We originally started this blog back in 2012, transferring from another site to WordPress from another blog I’d started to share our adventures in north-west lower Michigan. For a couple of years, I posted occasionally, and then posts became even rarer as I started working on my first Master’s degree. For a brief time, I started posting again but it wasn’t much at all.

Then, in December of 2020, the accident happened. If you are just now starting to follow this blog, you can read about that here: A Christmas To Remember. It changed everything.

A catalyst is defined as “an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action (Merriam-Webster.com., 2023).

The accident was a catalyst to so many things in our lives, including writing more on this blog. At first, it started as a way for us to update people all at once. Then, slowly, it has started becoming what it was originally meant to be to begin with; a way to share our lives with others and keep track of life. A journal in a sense.

For years, Ben and I had discussed the possibility of me working remotely from home, especially as his health deteriorated. After the accident, that became more of a necessity and a possibility than it ever had before. With Grad school between 2013 and 2020, with only a year break between 2 Masters degrees, there were so many things I stopped doing and had to give up because Grad school and working full time came first.

When the accident happened, I was still trying to figure out how to get so many of those things back, like my writing time, birdwatching, playing piano and guitar, crafting, gardening, and doing so many of the other things I like to do. The accident forced us to rethink things. I’ve always been away of just how short life is, but the accident made me even more aware of it, and left me wanting to do so much more before my time on this earth is done. I was already writing a fair amount, but I wanted to write even more. I was barely going out birdwatching, taking photos, or doing crafts because we just never made the time for it.

The accident, in so many ways, became the catalyst to getting my life back. Not only in the physical sense, but getting back to what truly matters. Slowing down. Taking time to sit out in the sun and read a book, hike through a forest in the middle of winter, and jam a tune on the piano. Taking the time to put together a craft, or play with the dog, blog, or try new things I’ve been wanting to learn. It isn’t that I wasn’t doing those things at all before the accident, but I wasn’t doing them much. The accident made both my husband Ben and I aware of what we were actually taking for granted without even realizing it, and what we needed to change to get to where we wanted to be.

So, we started making those changes. I now work from home. I’m blogging this year more than I have in a long time, and I’m writing pretty close to daily. I’m reading books faster than I have in years and taking the time to enjoy the sunshine on my face, and the cold air in my lungs. Life is too short not to.

When temperatures and system pressure change, they become a catalyst to the weather. Clouds move in or get pushed out, either covering the sun, or making room for it to reappear. Just like the weather, pressure and changes in our own lives, whether negative or positive, lead to change. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. But eventually, long enough into the seasons, the sun makes it way out from behind the clouds again. Difficult days don’t last forever. And sometimes, they become the catalyst that leads us towards days better than anything we could ever imagine.

Until next time,

Cindy

Citations:

“Catalyst.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catalyst. Accessed 15 Jan. 2023.