Preparation and Surprise

Image by MarcelGermain via Flickr

So many fun and exciting preparations will take place in this final countdown week prior to the big ocean adventure/trip/pilgrimage/voyage thing!

I've wakened the last few nights with thoughts of the next day's chores and checklists.  I'd say lost sleep is not a good thing but as I lie awake checking items off my lists, I eventually become bored with that and then turn to prayer (a good thing) for some anxiety relief!  Succumbing, I call upon my "alphabet prayer list" - seems to calm and lull me back into dreamland.  (The alphabet prayer  A, B, etc. naming those names that come into my head for each letter and then adding a prayer for that person.  The name can be a first name, a family name, a famous person name - for example a first name like granddaughter A with a calming prayer for her back-to-school anxiety, or proceeding with the B's, a last name as in daughter K's last - with a prayer for her writing skills, or a family name like McM - with prayers for everyone's safe travels, a J name - a recently scooter-injured person's name comes to my mind with a prayer for healing and less pain, sometimes the deceased seem particularly prominent during the alphabet roll call.  As I said, the alphabet prayer ultimately soothes my anxiety and I'm off to sleep with often the last amusing thought of "wouldn't Oprah be surprised to know I pray for her occasionally when I "hit the O's?"

Missing a little sleep, feeling a sense of excitement or maybe anxiety during the day, I sometimes think I'm over-reacting to the excitement of this trip planning.  On the other hand, how can I resist to prepare as fully as possible in order to then let what happens, happen!  It's like wrapping one's own surprise birthday present - sort of knowing what's inside the package, loving the outer layers of shiny colored paper and ribbon, ultimately removing the outer layers to find an amazing, "just thought I knew what it was," surprise!

Do you ever remember preparing for such a journey or such an event? Maybe it was a graduate school

diploma in your hand, or the amazing foreign face of the child you had longed for, or how about renewed acquaintance with a long lost friend or cousin?  These are amazing gifts we think we know are coming to us - but can never really imagine the actual thrill of the unwrapping!   If you have a minute I'd love to hear a sharing of something for which you prepared and then had to let it happen...........

 

It's a baby what?

Image via Wikipedia

It's a baby, I think or maybe not. It's kind of green and very small. It was captured by a friend as a very special gift for me. I don't know if it's a male or a female. (I probably should have two? Will he/she die of loneliness and fear tonight? I hope not!)

I've released it in a very damp area of the flower garden, with water, bugs and shelter nearby. We are supposed to have some rain tonight and I really am eager for it to just hunker down and stay, perhaps attract more small creatures like itself. I don't know - what do you know about little TREE FROGS??? (And please no lectures about importing foreign species, he/she/it was already living in Walla Walla:)) If I discover it's really bad for the environment, I'll just put up a sign that only the crows and magpies can read.......

Why would a friend give me a little tree frog? Well, because I really wanted one, of course, and besides doesn't every mature, intelligent, lovely, down-to-earth female gardener want a few little frogs of her own?

Have you ever wanted something that seemed totally out of character for you to have? Have you ever told someone else of that wish, never dreaming they would take you seriously, and/or have you just proceeded to find it on your own? Come on, I would love to hear of that special something you "gifted" yourself that no one else would have thought of finding for you!


Photo - no, that's not THE frog - just someone that looks like mine:)