~as this day begins~

We had forgotten what the humidity was like in this part of the world but we found out pretty quickly once we got here in late May.  Such a difference between Montrose and Burkburnett in that respect.  At present a quick check of the weather report says that we are at 87% humidity this morning.  Time to swelter a bit.

Mike and I lived for the past two years in a home without air conditioning back in the mountains but I never remember being hot or that uncomfortable.  Opening a window at bedtime was all you needed to do in order to get a decent night's rest.  Ceiling fans took care of the rest of the house.    Here in Texas the AC has pretty much been going nonstop since we moved in.  Crosby and Sally spend a good part of their day lying belly up on the cool tile floor. 

Despite the weather, we are doing fine here and just like everywhere else on the great plains, summer's excessive temperatures don't last forever.  It only seems like they do.

Every single day things get better and we are finding ourselves at home in this new land.  We continue to meet good people and occasionally a bad one or two but that's a given no matter where you are at.  The "good" in this place greatly outweighs the "bad" and I'm not sure we could ask for anything more.  

Settling in has taken a little time but we are managing to do that.  With the arrival of the last of our belongings from Colorado last week (thanks to the wonderful Morris family!) everything that we own is now in one place.  Mike and I are finding out that we really have more than we need now so looks like another garage sale is in order.  So thankful that we were able to get rid of so much that we didn't really use back in Colorado before we made the move here.  This house is smaller than our old one and there's only so much room to go around.

We live in the land of plenty.

Mike and I had something in common before we got married and it was that we both liked collecting old wooden boxes.  Each of us had been doing that for a long time.  When it came time to pack the moving truck that morning, those old wooden boxes served a useful purpose in holding the small items that really didn't fit anywhere else.  I had to stop and think of all the stories I had read "the 20" last year in our classroom about the travels of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Ingalls family did the very same thing as they moved from place to place in the 1860's.  Probably wouldn't have worked out too well for them to run to the local supermarket and ask for their boxes from the recycling bin.  

We have more than a dozen wooden boxes in all.  Last night Mike had a great idea about how to put them to use here in our new house and when everything was done, they ended up looking pretty nice.

The sleeves of my record albums from the days of my youth are getting worn and a bit faded but I will never give them up.  Those 3 old crocks are a small part of the old crockery that I have collected over the years.  Mike likes old books and so he put a few of his out there too.  The small dish, right hand side in the middle, was my Grandfather Brown's and is well over 125 years old.  His initials "AJB" are penciled in on the back side.  It came from England with his family when they came to America in the mid 1800's.  

We like old stuff and the stories that come with it.

The day will soon begin and much lies ahead to finish up.  I told Mike all along that there was nothing that we could not do as long as we stuck together.  That is proving to be most certainly true.

We are alive and well here.  
What shall the day bring to us that lies ahead?
Only God knows but we are soon to find out.

Back in Hutchinson, Kansas on a cold February day in 2013.  I had built my very first snowman ever at the age of 57!  It was freezing that day but I was determined to create something.  There probably won't be any snowmen made in Texas today or ever.  For that moment I was doing something that I need to do more often.

I was having fun!