Peonies as promised

Today is Memorial Day, and it's heading for 97 degrees.

We got up and mulched the back terraces (except one end), while they were shaded by the house, and before the extreme heat.

Now it is too hot to work, so we're waiting for evening shade.  I'm filthy, but how many showers can you take in one day?  I'll surely need one after the next phase of mulching.

Mulching gives instant gratification, but it's not really "once and done."  It looks great when you first put it down, and then you have to keep after it.  It impedes weeds, but doesn't halt them altogether.  However, it makes weeding much more manageable, on the whole.  It's one of many imperfect gardening solutions, and the cost of doing it again and again is one of its drawbacks.  However, mulching helps a lot, both for weed inhibition and for water retention, and it is one of the few "solutions" that enables you to continue planting if you wish, merely by sweeping aside the mulch and digging where you want to add a specimen.  As long as you don't use landscape fabric, this is true.  Words cannot express my hatred for landscape fabric.

So, here I am, filthy, waiting for the heat of the day to pass, and what better to do than blog?

I love peonies.  The only trouble with peonies, is that they don't last long enough.  Some peonies are actually easy to miss!  It's so disappointing when that happens... I go out to visit them, and find that they have bloomed and wilted, all over the weekend I was away.  Also, as soon as a rainstorm passes through, all those lush, heavy blossoms fall sodden to the ground, never to rise again.  And of course ants.  The ants on peonies are formidable.  But none of the drawbacks could induce me not to love peonies, because they are simply the most charming, vibrant, luxurious flower in the garden.

Without further delay, I bring you peonies:

Here's a start.  It's hard to capture the extent of them...

This silly bush is out in front of everything, by the mailbox.  They aren't a typical peony, but I've learned to appreciate their sweet simplicity and childlike faces.  Also, this bush is particularly profuse, and what's not to love about a profusion of peonies?

Back to the first corner I started to show you...

I can't seem to get detail plus profusion in a single shot.  I'm always more enchanted by the detail.  You'll have to believe me that the overview was also charming.

And here, you can see the ants.  I itch a little, just looking at the photo.

I just adore those pink ones.  Pink peonies.  

Is there anything more ridiculously delightful than a pink peony?

I mostly missed them this year; I think they peaked while David was becoming a doctor.

This yellow peony always blooms crazy-early.  I'm onto her now.  I usually get to enjoy a few views of these gigantic blooms before they pass their glory days.

Yellow peonies seem to be very rare.

So, that's a collection of peony photos.  They aren't this fresh anymore, and I'm steeling myself for the job of deadheading them later this week.  It's always sad to lop off these faded glories and then set in to wait for the next flush of blossoms.

But I have nasturtiums poking up, promising pleasures to come!

May garden

Spring arrived in a sudden burst, and the glory surprises me every day.

Here are a few of the delights I've been finding around my home.

Pink ajuga

Bleeding heart.  A family favorite.

Funny story.  Last summer, while walking with a friend, I mentioned that I wanted some Lily of the Valley.  She had just dug a bunch out of her yard, to discard.  She brought them to me the next day, in a garbage bag.  They were rather wilted.  I stuck them in the ground.  This year, they came back and started blooming. 
I think they're going to make it.

This is some sort of perennial geranium.  I've never seen a geranium like this.

Ah, the columbine.  It's been going and going.  

I cannot express how much delight columbine brings to my heart.

This pale pink columbine in particular has been blooming for about three weeks!  

Due to the angle of the sun on the blossoms, I could only get the leaves in focus in this photo, but the close-ups below detail the flower faces.

And the "doubles" -- maybe quite a few times more than double?

That's the back yard.  Now for the front:

Irises and allium in full bloom welcomed us home from North Carolina.

The allium is spent now, but still striking:

Around the corner, weigiela (beauty bush) and a delicious assortment of lush peonies.

I may have reached the maximum of pictures I can upload to one post.  Look for a post on peonies, specifically, coming soon!

Don't be anxious.  

There is no need to be anxious.

If God invests this much in the beauty of flowers, 

how much more 

does He love and invest in us?  

(see Matthew 6:28-34)

David's Graduation

We enjoyed David's graduation.  I will share a few pictures.

He wore a gold tie and yellow socks, so as not to clash with the green on his gown.  His precious in-laws presented him with that beautiful chess set as part of their graduation gift to him.

I love this picture.  

It captures the playful little boy I used to scoop up and carry close to my heart.  

Except, he's really tall now.

So pensive.

And it culminated with a Happy Mother's Day, besides!

God is faithful.

God is good.

The Story of the Bible

There is a great deal of confusion about the Bible.

Satan, the great deceiver, likes it that way, and is always working to this end.  When people know and understand the truth, they are much harder for him to deceive, so he has a strong tendency to promote confusion.

He keeps bringing back two major points of confusion, which present as "new" ideas, but in reality are very old heresies.

Heresy #1:  We don't need the Bible.  We only need Jesus.

Heresy #2:  Christians only need the part of the Bible that is about Jesus, and that is the New Testament.  We don't need the Old Testament; it is irrelevant.

First, let's tackle the idea that we don't need the Bible, we only need Jesus.

This idea sounds like it might be all right, because Jesus is, indeed, the centerpiece of our faith.  These days, this idea usually comes to us via catchy or guilt-inducing phrases such as:

"It's not about a book, it's about a person!"

"Our faith is not based on a book, it's based on an event!" (Meaning the resurrection.  Not the crucifixion, mind you.  The resurrection.)

"If you love your Bible so much, you are making it an idol.  Don't idolize and worship your Bible!  Worship Jesus!"

But tell me, how can I worship Jesus, if I do not know Him?  And how can I know Jesus, or know anything about His purpose, His origin (or whether He actually has an origin), or the events of His life, unless there is an account of these things?  And what is the Bible, except an account of the history of God's redemptive work through Jesus Christ?

We need the Bible, because it is a long, continuous, miraculous thread of historical revelation that points us to Christ.  Without the Bible, we would have no knowledge of Christ.

Can I please just quote some scripture here?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through Him all things were made; without Him, nothing was made that has been made.  In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. . .  The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  (John 1:1-4, 14)

Jesus Himself is the Word of God.

Let's think about that for a minute.  Jesus is the Word of God.  What are words for?  Words are for communicating, for sharing information, ideally for sharing truth, and for forging relationship through understanding.  Jesus is all these things.  Jesus is God's communication to us, His revelation of Himself.

The Bible, the Holy Scripture, is also God's revelation to us of Himself.  God has revealed Himself to us so that we can know Him.  Love Him.  Worship Him.  As God presented Moses with the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai amidst fire and cloud, so God presented the disciples with Jesus on a different mountain, in a great cloud, and transfigured Him with dazzling light to reveal His divine glory and authority, in the presence of Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17:1-5, Mark 9:2-7, Luke 9:28-35).  Jesus is God's message to us, the completion of all His great and perfect promises.  "This is my Son, whom I love, with whom I am well pleased," God said.  "Listen to Him!" God said.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law (Matthew 5:17-20), the completion of the promises (2 Corinthians 1:20).

We have arrived at Heresy #2 (above).  If Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets (who spoke God's promises), then how could we possibly think that we don't need to study the Old Testament?  How could the exact thing that Jesus came to fulfill be irrelevant?

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law.  Some people misunderstand what this means.  They like to say, "Jesus fulfilled the Law, so I don't have to."  Their assumption seems to be that Jesus did all the difficult, good things that God required, and then laid down His life as the perfect sacrifice to pay for sin, so now the rest of us are free to participate in as much sin as we please, since Jesus bought our way in to this new "freedom" ("Freedom in Christ," they say, missing the point entirely).  This makes absolutely no sense, and it rises out of ignorance of both the Law and the New Testament (see Romans 6:1-15; we aren't freed to participate in sin, we are freed from the bondage of sin).

Since I'm defending the Old Testament, let's look at what we need to know about the Law:

The Law contains two parts.  When you read it--in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy--you will notice that there are two different categories of things the Law addresses.

The Law explains that God wants to dwell among His people (Exodus 25:8-9).  It gives detailed instructions for how the Israelites should construct a tabernacle, set up a priesthood, and offer sacrifices to facilitate this co-dwelling.  The problem is that sin had entered the world through Adam and Eve, so there was a blockage in accessibility between Holy God and fallen man.  This part of the Law enabled people (those who would obey) to gain access to God, while they waited for the promised Messiah to come with the real solution.  Messiah would complete the restoration of the God-man relationship through perfect forgiveness of sins that would be possible after His freely offered self-sacrifice (see Hebrews 9:22-28).  Since Jesus, the Messiah, has completed His mission, we no longer need to offer sacrifices for sin.  This effectually makes the sacrifices, the priesthood and the temple obsolete.  In fact, instead of dwelling in a hidden, holy chamber at the center of a temple, God now dwells in every believer, through His Spirit.  Each one of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16).  We are forgiven in Christ and indwelt by His Holy Spirit in our very bodies.

The other part of the Law is not specifically about how to approach God.  These directions are practical (maybe even pragmatic) instructions for how people can best survive in a fallen world cursed by the effects of sin.  God explained how people should treat one another, so they could live peacefully together.  He gave Israel beautiful principles of justice that would help them mitigate the violence that sin inflicts on humanity.  He taught them to eat the meat of the least disease-prone organisms (no bottom feeders or carrion scavengers!).  He taught them how to wash their hands to promote personal hygiene, for goodness sake, thousands of years before germ theory was discovered.  He taught them to quarantine the sick to prevent the spread of disease.  He even taught them to rest the land every seven years (an alternative to crop rotation).  And yes (I know this is increasingly unpopular these days), He gave them instructions for how to cultivate the healthiest possible family structure through sexual relationships defined by faithfulness and judiciousness.  When Jesus came, He did not overturn any of these things.  He expanded them (Matthew 5-7).  He knew that once His followers were indwelt by the Holy Spirit, they would have more, not less, aptitude for following--and loving--the ways of God.

The part of the Law that deals with tabernacle, priesthood and sacrifice is sometimes called, "The Ceremonial Law."  This part of the Law was made obsolete after the finished work of Christ, although we can still learn much about the heart of God and the beauty of His redemptive plan if we will study it.  On the other side, the practical, day-to-day directives in the Law include, "The Moral Law."  The Moral Law is something like the Laws of Nature or the Laws of Science.  It's the way things work, which you can learn through experience (usually painful) or through study.  God created both the physical and the spiritual universe, the visible and the invisible.  Within His laws, we find both physical and moral principles for the way things work, shortcuts which God revealed to His people to save them pain and trouble, if only they would obey (Deuteronomy 10:12-13).  The book of Proverbs has a good deal of moral law in it, as well.

We love the Old Testament because it reveals God to us.  It shows us how much He loves us, and tells us of His mighty works and miracles.  I recently heard a famous preacher declare that the God of the Old Testament was not full of grace, and I wanted to tear my hair out.  God has always been full of grace.  The Old Testament shows how lovingly our gracious God bore with people who failed to obey Him again and again.  He always responded to their cries for help when they became desperate.  Even near the close of the Old Testament, when God had to punish His people during the captivity, He had graciously given them prophesies since the days of Moses, and all through the centuries, promising that He would gather them back as His people after seventy years.  His anger never lasts, and He always provides hope.  Every single book of the Old Testament points to the promise of the coming Messiah, the grace of God that would appear in human flesh to sympathize with us, relate to us, save us and bring us home.

We love the Law because it reveals the way of righteousness to us.  It helps us learn to live in love, joy and peace, as God desires for us.  The Law is good! (Romans 7:12, 1 Timothy 1:8)  The Law explains how we can live lives that are holy and pleasing to God.

The big confusion comes from mixing the idea of obedience to the Law with the idea of salvation by grace.  Please let me clarify, because it really isn't that hard:

Nobody can ever be saved through obedience to the Law.  Obedience to the Law does not produce salvation.  And anyway, perfect obedience to the Law is categorically impossible for anyone except Christ.

Salvation is a gift from God, and it comes only by faith in Jesus Christ, faith which God graciously awakens in us.  This faith enables us to believe that Jesus died and shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins.  The only way to be saved is to understand our sinful state, hate it, turn from it, and cast ourselves on the mercy of God, who promises to forgive and cleanse us by the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ's death and resurrection.  His death atoned for our sins and justified us before God.  His resurrection demonstrated the power of the Holy Spirit that raised Him up from under the cumulative sins of all humanity, and also raises us to a new life of living righteously through the Holy Spirit's power (Ephesians 1:17-23, 5:8-10).

Obedience to the Law 

can never produce salvation,

but salvation and the indwelling Holy Spirit 

will always produce obedience to God's ways--

not merely producing outward obedience to the Law,

but producing hearts that actively seek righteousness.

(see Ezekiel 36:27, Matthew 5:20-30)

The Bible is the story of God's plan for humanity.  The Bible begins with a perfect garden that contained two very significant trees, one whose fruit would lead to eternal life, and another whose fruit would burden humanity with the knowledge of evil.  The Bible ends with a city that has a river running through it, and on each side of the river stands the tree of life, yielding fruit every month, with leaves for the healing of nations.  At the center of the Bible, at the heart of this story, there is a single tree, a bare, cursed tree.  This tree bore no leaves, nor any fruit.  From its limbs hung our precious Lord and Savior, with nails through His hands and feet.  He was undoing the curse of the tree that brought the knowledge of evil, so that eventually all evil will be eradicated, all trees will bring forth pure blessings, and paradise will prevail for all eternity.

It is impossible to understand the New Testament if you do not understand the Old Testament.  The Old Testament tells us that there is a God who is the source of all life and goodness, and that we live separated from Him because of a rift caused by the original sin.  The Old Testament tells us all about God's plan to fix this problem.  Why is there even a nation called Israel, and why are there people called Jews?  The Old Testament explains this, too.  Israel exists because God planned to send Jesus as a human person, with genetics and a family background (Romans 9:5).  God chose Abraham to be the father of the nation that would eventually beget Jesus for the blessing of all nations (Genesis 12:3).  This is the whole point of Israel and Judaism, and it is the reason why God protected and preserved the documentation of their history:  It's Jesus' history!

It's all about Jesus, and of course Jesus is the most important part.  Without the Bible we wouldn't know anything about Jesus, and in effect, we wouldn't have Him.  We need the Bible in order to know Jesus.  The more we know and understand the Bible, the better we are able to know and understand Jesus.

Jesus Himself said, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,'" (Matthew 4:4).

Every Word.

Plagiarism and the truth

Sometimes I want to write a book, and sometimes I cannot even wrap my mind around how hard it would be, if I didn't write pure fiction.

I can't figure out how, at age 52, I could keep from plagiarizing by accident.  If I read something in, for instance, a John Piper book, ten years ago, and I internalized it, what if I don't remember that I read it there?  What if the things I learned, over time, simply became my way of thinking, and I don't go through the exercise of thinking back through where every thought might have had its seeds of origin, once I get thinking?  Or what if I remember that I read something somewhere, a long time ago, but I have no idea where it was that I read it?  What about that?  Am I morally obligated to go searching until I rediscover my source?  Is there a point at which knowledge becomes one's own, rather than the property of the person who originally taught it to you?

Here's something else.  I sometimes find that when I'm studying the Bible, I have some thoughts, and then I start to notice things--in a sermon, on the radio, in a conversation or an internet article--and they correspond to what I've been thinking.  I've always taken that as a sign of encouragement, an indication that I am on the right track, and others also see what I see.  If we are all finding the same truth, then it is likely that we are on the right path together.  I've always taken this as encouragement, but when I think of actually trying to write something, I get all frightened.  What if I write the same thing somebody else writes (or has already written), and I get accused of plagiarism?

(I don't worry too much about what happens here on this blog, because it is casual, and unofficial, and entirely free from monetary gain.)

I recently watched a documentary on Amazon Prime called, "The God who Speaks."  It was really, really good.  I resonated with it.

It dovetailed with some points I have written about in these blog posts:

Thankful for the Bible
Groaning for Home
Sin, the Promise, the Law and the Word of God

I hope this only means that we all love Jesus and are led in our hearts and minds by His Holy Spirit to ponder on and discover the precious truth.

God wouldn't want us to copyright His truth, would He? 
Doesn't He want His truth to be shared freely? 
Doesn't He want His ministers to teach with humility,
being more concerned that truth is dispersed to those locked in darkness
than whether they themselves receive due credit for their discoveries?

If it's new, it probably isn't true, and if it's true, it probably isn't new.  So anything true is by nature recycled.  Maybe we don't need any more books.

A Schubert Story

Most of the time, the foreshortening of my phone's camera drives me crazy, but once in awhile it renders something well, such as in this wistfully whimsical capture of Schubert:

Schubert is probably the cutest dog in the world, and exceedingly beloved.  This must be why we invest ridiculous sums of money in his veterinary care, which is endless, because he has terrible allergy issues affecting his skin and the inside of his mouth.

Schubert patiently, trustingly endures all manner of health routines.  We soak his feet in epsom salts, squirt drops into his ears, brush his teeth and rub antiseptic gel into his gums.  We lather him with allergy shampoo and make him stand, shivering, for 7 minutes before his rinse and (worst of all) blow dry.  He eats nothing but one hypoallergenic brand of dog food and his multiple medications and supplements, which he receives with much pomp and circumstance every evening in a small ball of cream cheese, his favorite.  His med-yoo-seen, we call it, and he comes running, sliding on the rug in the last lap towards my fingers extended with the smeary prize. We call this his magic carpet trick, and all of us are very proud when his form is on point.

Recently, we switched from an insanely expensive daily allergy pill to a slightly less insanely expensive monthly allergy shot.  Yesterday, he received one of these shots.  Poor guy.  He always gets into the car full of so much happy anticipation.  Then, as he realizes that the car is following the route to the vet's office, he begins to shake and tell us, "Oh no.  I have made a terrible mistake."

Shot completed, Shawn and I left him in the house and headed off to an appointment together.  We returned home at lunchtime, famished, and sat down to eat.  We were so hungry that it took us a moment to realize that no furry friend had come to greet us.  I went off and searched the house for him.  I looked in all the usual places...

He wasn't on the sunporch.

...not even hiding amongst the pillows on the daybed, as he sometimes does.

He wasn't keeping watch out the living room widow.

...not even slacking off on the job.

He wasn't cozied up on the futon in my study,

neither awake nor asleep.

I finally located him, huddled miserably on the blue chair in our bedroom.

I carefully lifted him, and he moaned miserably.  I carried him down to the kitchen, where Shawn took a look.  We were both concerned, but not knowing what exactly to do, we finished our lunch.

It was a lovely day, so after eating, we decided to take a walk.  We leashed up Schubert, and I carried him out to the boulevard across from our corner, where I set him down.  Schubert didn't cry, exactly, but he looked at us with a face full of woe, and turned back toward the house.

"Something is wrong with him," I said to Shawn.  I have a gift for stating the obvious.

We put him into the house and walked without him, a grueling walk for me, filled with worry and lupus symptoms and too much sun.

After our walk, I worked on some computer tasks, and Schubert snoozed on the futon nearby.  I googled his allergy shot, which claims to be natural and bio-friendly and free from side effects.  I called the vet's office and asked if side effects are common after this shot.  They said, "Virtually never, but if he is still feeling poorly tomorrow, you'd better bring him in so we can check for underlying issues."

Shawn told me, "Right, because we haven't spent quite enough on him yet this week."  Usually Shawn is a big softie about vet bills for this little guy, but there do come days...

Around suppertime, Schubert got really bad.  I carried him to the sunporch and laid him on the daybed, because that is one of his very most favorite places to lie, and he could be near us while we ate.  Usually he burrows amongst the pillows with wild abandon, but last night he just lay stiffly on his side across the middle of the bed, feet sticking straight out in front of him.  He was oddly still.

It gave me the creeps.  I kept going in to check on him.  He looked from a distance as though he were asleep, but close up, I could see that his eyes were wide open, and he was looking around, although holding his body stiff and still.  I touched him gently.  He flinched and moaned, but turned his head toward me and licked my hand softly, telling me, "I trust you, mom.  You are a good lady, and I know you will help me feel better."

Shawn had to leave for an overnight business trip in Kokomo, Indiana.  I'll admit, I was feeling mighty sorry for myself.  My son's apartment building burned down three days ago.  I had a significant lupus headache and aching legs.  And now my dog was going to die while my husband was in Kokomo, Indiana.  When poor little Piper died, it was February, so we could keep his body in the cold garage until his burial.  But yesterday was a warm spring day.  The bugs have been coming back.  Whatever would I do with Schubert's body if he left me while Shawn was gone?  I felt Schubert's skin, and he was burning up.

Around the time Shawn left, I got out Schubert's med-yoo-seen.  I also got out an 81 mg aspirin tablet.  Shawn has those for his heart, although he rarely takes them.  I remembered that when Piper was a wee pup, barely two pounds worth of canine matter, he had a reaction to a puppy vaccine, and the vet said he could have one half of a baby aspirin.  I figured Schubert needed something, and he seemed as likely to die without the aspirin as from it, so I tucked it into his cream cheese ball with his other meds.  Hearing me working with the cream cheese (or maybe smelling it), Schubert stumbled over to claim his treat.

Then we did TBG time for moms and dogs.  TBG time for moms and dogs is Schubert's most absolute favorite thing in all the world.  After the sun sets in the evening, Schubert spends approximately 100% of his time sitting on the brown blanket on the sectional in the living room in the dark, hoping for TBG time for moms and dogs.  Last night, he got it.  We watched an episode of Escape to the Country (a British house hunting show), and he curled up next to me.   It seemed as though the aspirin offered him some relief.

After the show, I carried him outside and set him in the grass for his last outing before bed.  He limped around pitifully, did what needed to be done, and then loped directly back inside, stumbling on the threshold. He was confused, because usually med-yoo-seen follows the last outing, but he had already had his med-yoo-seen.  I got a single morsel of hypoallergenic dogfood out of the cupboard, and lured by the promise of this reward, Schubert toiled upstairs to bed on his own four legs.

We both got ready for bed in record time.  Due to my lupus headache, I may have skipped some steps.  Schubert was curled up in his little bed under mine even before I'd finished putting on my pajamas.  Exhausted, I fell asleep immediately and slept until 4:30.

At 4:30, I awoke with my head full of thoughts about leptospirosis.  Leptospirosis is a deadly infection that dogs can get from exposure to wild animal urine.  We have foxes in our neighborhood, and last year, a neighbor's dog nearly died from leptospirosis, which he allegedly contracted by licking something upon which an infected fox had urinated.  On Saturday, Shawn had gone down to The Bottoms with his chain-saw to clear a fallen tree off a path.  I'd taken Schubert down to check on Shawn, halfway through the job, and a neighbor was there.  The three of us chatted for awhile, and then I noticed Schubert licking and eating something on the ground.  It's never good for an allergic dog to eat anything unknown, so I'd pulled him away and taken him home, but I woke up at 4:30 a.m. this morning, haunted with the idea that my dog had been licking a spot where there was residue from fox urine, and now he had leptospirosis and would soon die.

I listened for him, but there was silence under the bed.  I couldn't sleep, could barely even breathe.  I wanted to gather him in my arms and cuddle with him on the futon, but his odd quietness frightened me.  Finally, at 5:30, I collected my pillows and the cotton blanket from the back of the blue chair, and went to the futon by myself.

In the dark on the futon, I listened to the clock tick, and slowed my breathing to its rhythm.  In through the nose, smell the flowers, count of eight ticks.  Hold for eight ticks.  Exhale through the mouth, blow out the candle, count of eight ticks.  Repeat.  Focus on the ticks and the tocks.  Breathe.  Don't think words.  Count and breathe, breathe and count.  Sleep came in a wave of mercy.

I awoke to a very gentle and whiskery sniffling in my face.  He'd found me, and he was alive!  Our unspoken conversation went like this:

Schubert:  Hey mom!  I love you!  Why didn't you tell me you were here?

Me (stroking his fur softly): I wanted to, wanted so badly to, but every time I touched you, you groaned.  I was afraid I would bother you or hurt you, and actually, I was afraid you might be dead.

Schubert: I'm not dead!  I'm a happy guy!  See, I can wag my tail for you!

Me: Look at you!  You must be feeling better, sweet puppy.

Schubert (curling up next to me, making maximum contact with his furry back, crowding me deliciously): This is so nice!  I love this!  I wish you would have told me earlier that you were in here!  Let's get some good zzzzzs in before the alarm goes off!

And thus began a most joyful morning.  When we arose, Schubert barked and frolicked for his breakfast, just like usual, and although he slipped and tripped a bit due to some stiff hips, he seems to have loosened up quite nicely.  He's back on the job, barking at the birds in the front yard with exuberant gusto, and I don't care if that is redundant, because redundant joy is a great blessing.

It didn't even bother me when the garage door was broken and I couldn't get the car out to go to Bible study.




P.S. Happy May Day!