We make a good team, Kat and I, don’t we!

At least that’s what it seems these days. Perhaps its just normal for spring in Nashville and this being my first year and all, it’s a novelty. Whatever it is, it’s stunning. Even at 6am.

As I drive to the Y each morning, passing the same beautiful homes with acres and acres of land on roads that feel like back-country lanes, I thank God for mornings. For Nashville. For my Life.

Weird. Not long ago I was begging God to let me die. Now here I am, thanking Him for not saying yes to my death wish.

I don’t know what I’m doing on this earth. I still don’t have any answers to the questions that have spun around in my head for the last two years. But right now it doesn’t seem to matter — my spirit is at rest.

Which gives my mind time to ponder new questions. And my heart strength to wrestle with different issues.

The last few days I’ve been listening to a lot of Erwin’s teaching cds. Especially one that Ron & Lynn sent me for Christmas. In it Erwin poses the question, "is it possible to love God and still have a bad day? To still have unfulfilled longings, unmet expectations, unrealized dreams?" As I listen, it reaffirms and reinforces the lessons I’ve learned over the last two years.

Yes, it IS possible to love God and have a bad day. And it IS possible to have a bad day and still be crazy in love with God. As I said yesterday, it’s in the depth, flavor and grittiness of real life that the Abundant LIfe is found. It’s those bad days I have that truly drive home to me how sweet and soulthirst-quenching life with Jesus is. Just having Him here. Beside me. At every moment of the day.

My attitude hasn’t been the greatest lately. Partly due to my being so much in my own head… It’s not that I’m in a foul mood, because I’m not. I’m genuinely enjoying life right now — which is a weird thing for me now. Its more that as I think through certain things, I get sort of agitated and rather snarky. I guess emotions are floating to the surface now from all manner of things and so I ride the waves as they come.

But I’m also finding that I’m checking myself a lot. I’m realizing when I’m not in the greatest of moods and doing my best to uncover the full extent of why (rather than striving to stuff the emotions down or "wish them into the corn field" as I used to do). Which puts me even more in my own head — as God and I process through all the emotions and discuss what to do with this stuff. I’m sure this must be unsettling for some of those around me. But I’m not sure what I can do about that.

Having the mornings to workout has given me time to cull through all the years of stuff collected in my heart and spirit and begin a sort of mental/spiritual Spring Cleaning — discarding used up worn out paradigms, getting rid of the mind-clutter and sweeping away the dust of old habits and thought patterns.

The drive back home for a shower and breakfast tends to take longer, as my country road route turns into a city thoroughfare for morning commuters. I don’t mind, it gives me time to enjoy the beauty of the morning, listen to the birds singing and let my mind wander….

Bongo Java West — My roommate works at Bongo East — is the sister coffeehouse to Fido (or is it the parent? I can’t remember…)

Nashville has such an amazing diversity of people, not just ethnicities but personalities

There are tons of streams and creeks just like this one all throughout the city.

Here’s a quick glimpse of Nashville in Spring through my eyes. Its not a complete picture, because I ran out of film before I ran out of city. But hopefully it will give you a taste of the beauty I’m surrounded by in this amazing city.

(PS – These were taken today with my film camera and scanned by Eckard onto a cd…)

These are the trees I see outside my kitchen window every day. Amazing!

Sevenmile Creek runs right in front of my apartment complex

Even the Bumble Bees couldn’t resist the wonderful warm day and nearly clear blue skies

Isn’t this city beautiful!

I met some kids having a bake sale to raise money for a mission trip to Mexico

I stopped in at my favorite coffee house, Fido, and ran into a friend there.

Inside Fido

But I that roll got stuck in the bottom of my bag and didn’t get developed today. I’ll have it for you tomorrow.  However, I couldn’t resist posting this picture. It’s a typical scene at Fido

— coffee – check, Apple i/Power Book – check, headphones – check, wireless internet – check (Fido always provides)… you’re good to go.

I took this photo of Nashville’s skyline out the window of my car waiting at a red light. There are better views to be had of our beautiful and distinct skyline, but I ran out of film…. ::sigh:: See that funny looking spiky skyscraper on the far right? Everyone in town calls it "the Bat Tower" — because, well, you can see for yourself. It’s actually the Bell South Tower.

Here’s a view of the Bat Tower from my sunroof

Welcome to Music City!

The trees have finally woken from their winter naps and are starting to get dressed. ‘Bout time. I was getting tired of seeing naked trees everywhere. For the last few weeks I’ve been yelling at them from my porch and out my car windows and sunroof, "Wake up and get dressed!! It’s Spring!!"

Out my windows today I saw trees dressed in purples and reds and whites and greens… little bitty leaves springing up all over the place. Even the grass is waking up. It’s getting green again and spouting up in places where only brown dormant plants lay just a few days ago. Beautiful. Abosutely beautiful.

I love Nashville.

It’s 9pm and I’m sitting on my porch in sweats and a t-shirt. The summer critters are already playing their nightly symphony, even though its still only March. Yes, I LOVE Nashville! You can’t do this in LA. You just can’t. Not even in summer.

The wind is starting to kick up a little. We’re expecting another massive storm to roll through sometime tonight or early tomorrow. More thunder and lightning. Just my kind of weather.

Even though I worked till 8pm tonight and I’m dead tired from no sleep last night and lots of staring at a computer and working to finish a some reports today, I’m at peace. Life is good. Even when it’s hard, it’s good.

Can you smell it?

It’s the fragrant aroma of fresh rain falling. I began as I drove home from Mosaic tonight. I got a whiff of it and immediately opened my sunroof to the "tilt" position so I could take in the whole bouquet of it.

It’s a fragrance that immediately takes me back to my childhood. For some reason, even though I lived in many places as a child where it rained often — like Tacoma, Washington — the smell of fresh rain always seems to take me back first to Glorieta, New Mexico. I have wonderful memories of many summers spent at there, hiking in the mountains where the conference center is nestled, learning to make many fun things in day-camp, playing in the campground, and watching the daily thunderstorm make it’s way through the mountains on its way to Santa Fe.

But more than just the memories comes the feelings, of newness, of freshness…. hope. Every time I smell the rain I feel…. cleaner. Even if I’m dirty as I can get.

It was so refreshing to smell the rain tonight. I’m so tired. I’ve been exhausted all weekend. Not sure what’s going on… I just feel like I did when I had Mono back in the 8th grade. I slept most of today, and I still feel like I could sleep for another 12 hours. So to inhale that wonderful aroma of fresh rain and fill my lungs with it was like… like getting a cold drink of water on a hot summer day. Invigorating and filled with hope.

I love autumn! Especially here. The leaves have begun to change. What beautiful colors! Everyone’s told me that we’re not in the best color time yet… Wow, I can’t WAIT!

The last few days here it’s been overcast, rainy, a few thunderstorms scattered for fun and noise… the mornings have been so crisp, so fresh and beautiful.

I LOVE Tennessee!!! What a great state. What a GORGEOUS state! With all this beauty, why did I ever stay in LA for so long…????

… uh, oh yeah… friends. My friends are in LA….. that’s why I stayed… I remembered it because their all chucking oranges at me from their cars, as they sit on the freeway, in rush hour traffic, smog, and heat.

Guess what, guys! It only took me about 25 minutes to get home tonight, and that was because it was raining hard. ;P

Yeah. I love Nashville.

I’m sitting here lounging in a camping chair in my own living room. Aaahhhh. How nice it is to finally have a home where I can unpack all my stuff and decorate from the ground up.

I’ve found that I share the place with a number of “Tennessee Critters”. Mostly spiders, but also a few other things I can’t quite identify yet. Learning curve’s in full throttle these days…. new weather patterns, new traffic patterns, new language — sheesh! definintely a new language — and yes, new bugs to learn as well. I had one particular bug I just could not figure out. He looked like a centipede, sort of… had that shape and all the bazillion legs. But his legs were much longer than a centipede’s. He moved pretty dang fast too.

The first night I met him, we had a little disagreement. I told him I’m the one paying rent. He told me he’d been here first. We finally agreed to go to our separate corners, me to my air mattress by the window, he to the back of my walk-in closet. Why didn’t I give him the boot right then, you ask? Well, I’ll tell ya. He kept to the top parts of the wall, very close to the crown molding and ceiling, and I just didn’t have anything tall enough to stand on where I could reach him and squash him flat. However, tonight he got brave… or stupid. Not sure which… He ventured down to the lower parts of the closet, and must’ve caught a quick ride on something I grabbed out because he came flying back toward the closet as fast as his multi-legs could carry him — and that was pretty dang fast, I tell you! He looked like just a black blur scampering across the carpet. Scared the be-jeebers outa me!

He came to a halt on the side of a large black Creative Memories tote bag. Even with the adreniline rushing through my body, I knew it was now or never. So I grabbed up one of my chunky-high-healed shoes, and, apologizing all the while, squished him like a bug…
which, of course he was…
a bug… that is…

Anyway… I left his remains strewn across the rug as a warning to other freeloading bugs: A new tenant’s in town, kickin’ butt and takin’ names.

Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me. I’m not, by nature, a violent person. Well, not entirely anyway. I generally try to find a way to co-habitate with all God’s creatures, no matter how weird-looking or many-legged they may be. Most of them serve a helpful purpose… though, I’m at times hard-pressed to figure out how helpful their purpose really is.

Mosquitos, for example. I just can’t help but wonder, “what in the world was God thinkin’ when he came up with them???” And flies… what’s that about? Were they part of the fall? You know, “all of creation groaning,” and all that…?? (see Romans 8 for more on this subject). ‘Cause frankly, I can’t quite figure out what flies are supposed to do, exactly. Perhaps they were just made as food for spiders.

I don’t mind spiders. Except for the fact that they seem to find me either tasty fare, or they just get pissed off at me during the night… Inevitably I end up with some doozy bites, and I can never figure out just when or where I got them. Sneaky little critters, spiders.

Bees. I hate bees. Talk about a necessary evil. They give us honey, which is good. I love honey. But they buzz around and sting us, which is bad. I hate being stung.

And then there are wasps… what was God thinkin’ there???? “Let’s just make these crazy carnivorous mean-and-nastys just to teach my people to remain calm in the face of angry danger.” …. or perhaps they are just part of the fall too. Maybe they were docile creatures before Eve took matters into her own hands. And now they’re just really pissed off at humans in general for messing up their garden.

At any rate, bees and wasps send me into orbit. I run yelling and flailing and generally making an idiot out of myself. I realize, as Nina has pointed out to me far too many times, that this just gets the bees and wasps all upset and more likely to sting me. Not to mention I look like an idiot, to the average passerby, running around flailing my arms and yelling. They can’t see the bullet-sized terrorist zooming after me, stinger armed, locked and loaded. Admittedly, remaining calm seems a much more logical thing to do — and especially brave in the face of such danger. But come on. Honetly, how many people actually think or act logically when in panick mode? I don’t think I can be blamed for my actions in these situations.

However, I did act quite calmy last week when a wasp found its way into Stan and Holly’s home (where I was staying until Friday) and I am still quite proud of myself for my actions. He was beating himself senseless against the glass of the back door. You could pratically here him saying, “Darn! I. Can. See. It. Right. There. Why. Can’t. I. Get. To. It?????” I was scared to swat at him, for fear he’d turn that dogged determination currently fixated on the the door on me instead. That’s more attention than I care to draw from a wasp.

So I grabbed up a clear plastic cup and a piece of cardboard, trapped him against the glass with the cup and slid the cardboard under it.

It was then I discovered up-close and personal what “madder than a wet hornet” really looks like. Oh boy, was he mad! And powerful too. He hit the cardboard and cup with such force at times I thought he’d knock it out of my hands. That’s why I just left the cup, still upside down out on the patio. Poor guy. I still can’t believe he didn’t knock himself silly hitting the cup with all that force. I finally felt guilty I’d left him trapped under that cup in the hot sun. So I went back out, quickly tipped the cup over — pointing it in the opposite direction from me!! — and ran like mad back into the house. I don’t know where he went, but I never saw him again. Hopefully he’s forgotten what I look like by now. And, given I’m so far south from Hendersonville now, I think I’m safe from retribution…. I hope. But I’ll sure be glad when fall arrives and the bees and wasps go to sleep for a while.

Oh, good grief. Another mulit-legged creature is making it’s way across my living room floor. I gotta go make an example of another Tennessee bug.

A great thunderstorm is sliding through Hendersonville as I type.The rain is pounding hard on the roof. Just a moment ago one lightning bolt struck so close we lost power for a moment. Cool.

I love thunderstorms! I love everything about them. The sounds of thunder and rain. The flickers of the lightning — especially at night when they light up the whole sky. The smell of the earth after a good rain. Here in Tennessee often after a rain a mist will rise off the rivers, lakes and ponds. It’s so beautiful!

Isn’t it amazing how something so tumultuous as a thunderstorm can bring such beauty into life?