Highways and Byways

Hi, friend! I am presently enjoying my afternoon 'reward' {Hazelnut Iced Coffee} which I mix myself every day as a celebratory toast to me and God for making it through the morning!

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Last Friday morning, I packed up the children and we embarked on an out of the ordinary day trip to visit some family and new friends up in the northern part of our state. After climbing the foreboding Mt. Getoutofthehouse, I settled in for the two hour drive, happy to have the children contained and hopeful for some quiet down time.

Here now are a few of the random thoughts the floated and flew through my head as we rambled on down the highways and byways.

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I prefer the little gold nuggets discovered on the AM frequency, over the loud everything-sounds-the-same modern sounds that drone on the FM. Already feeling like I had entered the heartland of America, "Ben Brosco" and his small town radio show on AM 960 played tunes from every decade but the last two. It was the soundtrack of songs I heard all through childhood, it was free and it was fun.

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I broke yet another "I will never" pledge of my past.

My children were entertained in the car with a brank spankin' new portable DVD player. I vowed this would never happen, but as my mother always has said "A wise woman changes her mind". In spite of the fact that somehow they had set the "Tigger & Friends" DVD to the French translation, they sat quietly transfixed for nearly 2 hours. I may need to make more trips up North. Or South. Or East. Or West.

Perhaps it will work just sitting in the driveway.

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I am happy not to be 'plugged in' (never did like that phrase much to begin with). It's quite freeing to be 'unplugged'...available to whom and where God wants on any given day. My life is not filled with pre-packaged service, but spontaneous adventure.

I like it, I love, I want some more of it.

{I think I might expound upon this on another post.}

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I drove past a house with a backyard of rusty old automobiles...a car cemetary of sorts.

Made me think of the people we put out to rot because they weren't useful to us anymore.

They weren't available to fill a need, a pew or an image... politely never actually taking them to the junk yard, but keeping them behind the barn and rarely bothering with them unless they decided to shine themselves up and look useful.

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I want to reread the Mitford series by Jan Karon.

Or maybe I just want to live in it. While driving through a little town in which I would have not been the least surprised to see the main character, Father Tim, walking down the street, stopping to sample some of Esther Bolick's Orange Marmalade Cake that just came out of the oven...

The heart of America is precious, and I felt as though I was driving right through it.

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I wish I had arms long enough to reach to the back seat.

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As I pulled in our driveway at the end of a pretty special day, I thanked God for the safety He granted and the time I had with just He, my thoughts and the open road (and sleeping children!).