~Upon having nothing to be afraid of any longer~

Greetings everyone in the late evening hours of what has been a pretty nice day here in south central Kansas.  Even though it is nigh onto 8 o'clock soon, the sun is just now setting in the western sky.  I quickly got in a 4 mile bike ride before I called it a "day" and even though I needed to go further, I'm happy that I could at least do that much.  My "toe stubbing incident" of this past weekend has proven a little more painful than I realized at first and I'm just trying to baby my right foot along so I'll be able to walk all over New York in a few days.  Every day the last 3 toes get just a little more purple and putting on a shoe can be a real "treat" (not).  But I'm alive and well and thankful to God above to be able to get on my bike and ride.  No complaining from me!

And speaking of New York....well, this morning for a brief moment in time, I just about talked myself out of going.  Don't know what "hit" me but whatever it was, it was enough to get my wildest of imaginations going completely out of kelter.  The result was one of those mini "panic attacks", the kind like the one that I had last January when I was on the last 48 hours of wearing a long-armed cast on "old lefty".  That was the day that my arm itched like crazy and was so uncomfortable that I nearly took a hack saw and removed both the cast and the arm with it.  But given some time and reasoning I made it long enough to have the "real doctor" take the cast off of me two days later.  The same could be said of this morning's incident, given a bit of time to "reason" it out, my fears of travelling subsided.  But for a moment, those worries and anxious feelings were quite real to me.

You know how it is when sometimes you have so much time to think about something that after a while, you think too much?  If so, then you'll know what I am saying.  This morning in the span of about 15 minutes worth of time, I imagined EVERY horrible thing that could go wrong on this trip for me.  What if the plane crashed or the weather was so bad that the flights were cancelled?  What if I got lost driving the short distance from Binghamton to Owego on Saturday?  What if there were pickpockets or grouchy cab drivers, what if the subway was too hard to maneuver and we got lost and couldn't find my niece Jessica's apartment? Shoot, what if I fall asleep on the train coming back home and instead of getting off in Hutchinson, Kansas I end up waking in Los Angeles or something?  Holy cow friends~I was on the "what if" wagon for the better part of a half hour before I finally had the good sense to say "no more".   And it was there, at that point in time this morning as I sat in my car waiting to go into school for the day, that I asked God to just calm my fears.  And surprisingly not,  He did.

I haven't an idea on this earth what would have made me have second thoughts about the trip of a lifetime for myself and my 22-year old daughter, Ursela.  But friends, this much I do know~I have absolutely nothing to be afraid of.  For every bad thing that could happen to me along the way to New York and back to Kansas, a thousand "good things" are waiting for me also.  Sure, there's a chance I'll take a wrong turn somewhere along the way, but I've had a lot of practice doing that kind of stuff in this life of mine and I'm STILL here to tell the story.  There may well be taxi drivers that aren't so nice or people who are rude and inconsiderate of others.  But in the city of  New York, with a population of a million people, my best guesstimate is that for every stranger who is only out for himself, there are a thousand more who would give you the shirt off of their back if you needed it.  For every person every where on this earth who would wish to do harm to me, there is one person that would always come to my rescue and stand up for me on my behalf.  The "good" in this world not only trumps evil, it TROMPS it every single time.  And for that I rejoice and am glad in it.  

4 more days await until we leave and there's plenty to do before that happens.  Getting a crash course in "travelling 101" from Ursela.  We're journeying  a little on the "light" side and so every precious square inch of suitcase is going to have something occupying it.  Between one "seasoned" traveler (that'd be Ursela) and one "greenhorn" traveller (that'd be me) I'm betting that we will make it there and back, living to tell the story of our adventures for years to come.  Once our plane lifts off in Tulsa, we won't be back to the mid west for 9 days.  There is much to do and see and we aim to do a whole bunch of it while we are there.  As of this night, Peggy Miller is way more determined to get on that plane and GO than I would ever be afraid enough to want to stay here~And THAT thought, warms my heart.  

Good night friends and family~take care of yourselves and each other out there.  We're all in this together.

One of the very nicest things I have seen this week~my new windsock flag flying at Mike's house just outside of Montrose, Colorado.  It's a lighthouse one and I was happy to see that he had begun flying it.  As you can tell, the wind tends to blow pretty well in Colorado just as it does here  in Kansas.  I have a lot to look forward to as I enter the future and this is only the beginning.  :)

Only a few more weeks left to enjoy the company of great kids!  One of the last groups I worked with at Avenue A Elementary, posing for a photo as we said "good bye" to one another back in May of 2010.  The blessings are many, the troubles are really few!