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The Great Wall
The Great Wall of China. 🈸
One of my first pictures with my new Pentax (my first “fancy” camera 🙂). I really didn’t even know how to use it yet.
But I had just traveled to China to teach English for a year at Zhengzhou University at the ripe ol’ age of 23. It was 1986, and I had to say goodbye to my new fiancé for an entire year!ðŸ˜
#adventuretime #casettetapecommunication
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BBQ on a Stormy Night
Our local barbecue restaurant just got this huge, wooden rocking chair to put in front of their building.
I told my husband it looked like the great white throne judgment (mentioned in the Bible) as the storm clouds started to roll in. 😮
Preparing to Live in China (1986)
I was 23 and selling everything I had.
About this time, 31 years ago, I was preparing to live and teach in China. I really didn’t know exactly where, yet, just somewhere in the Mainland.
But, I almost didn’t go.
I got scared.
Midway into the interviewing process, I found out I would be teaching adults.
Most likely it would be professors at a university. Say whaaaaa?!!!
Yeah, I started re-thinking this E N T I R E thing.
A lot of unique things happened up to this point, and I really felt I was to go to China, but then I heard this little tidbit. 🙂
Not only was I going to a third world country, didn’t know a bit of Chinese, nor any Asians, at all, but now felt this was really stretching it for me.
I had just graduated with an elementary education degree and knew nothing of teaching adults. Much less professors…YIKES!
But, I believed God had called me to do this.
That’s part of the fascinating, unfolding story I will probably share later.
So, I had to trust that He knew what he was doing.
I had always believed the saying, “Where He calls, He will equip.”
And now was my time to step out into the deep and
“DO IT AFRAID”.
TO BE CONTINUED…
PS Oh, and I might add, my boyfriend at the time had just proposed to me…
but I would be gone for a YEAR!
Read about our long distance courtship here:
 https://thentherestwo.com/2016/10/23/29-years-ago-i-married/
HOPE and the Beach
Only home a second day from Panama City Beach, and I’m already thinking about how to move to the south, sooner!
I have a countdown going on in my head.
See, Hubby can retire in three years, and my grandkids are sure to arrive in the next few years. There might be a slight problem in that my son just got married and lives here, in Indiana, but my daughter is in Georgia and was married in 2015.
I guess it’s a race to see who has their kids first. 😉
If you’re at all interested in my fam…here’s my daughter’s wedding video. And a post about the wedding day: HERE
And, we just got my son’s video!: Â HERE
Regardless, I just can’t handle winters, anywhere, anymore! Even if my kids didn’t live in the south, I would eventually have to move there, for sure.
Or Hawaii.
I LOVED Hawaii. It was like the Garden of Eden.
I’m still trying to talk my husband into retiring there, as well. 😉
Okay, so a loaf of bread costs $5.oo.
INDIANA WEATHER
Don’t get me wrong, I love the change of seasons and the area where we live is known for its vivid, fall colors.
As for winter, I actually love the snow and don’t mind the cold here.
It IS pretty and it does make it feel more like the holiday season has arrived.
Some of my favorite times are going out to take pictures at night when the snow has fallen. It’s SO peaceful.
⌈The neighbor’s house.⌋
Heck, I’ve even been known to run errands without a coat during 37º days…menopause or no menopause.
And when this little, Cali girl visited grandparents one midwestern winter, she was totally obsessed with seeing snow, playing in the snow, laying in the snow…not coming in from the snow, period.
I even have fond memories, while living in southern California, of my dad driving us up to the mountains of Big Bear. We’d drive around for hours listening to Christmas carols hoping to see even one flake of falling snow.
We were thrilled to find on one particular visit there was enough snow for snowball fights and sledding. Sledding down steep mountainsides ladened with huge, snow drifts jumping a foot or two in the air and then careening down onto curvy mountain roadways. (My brother actually hit a parked, car’s wheel that trip. That wheel kept him from going under the car and over the mountain cliff. TRUE STORY.)
So the past winters have been fun, but not anymore… they are really taking a toll on me now!
PRAYING/FIGHTING for HOPE
Sadly, my body has developed worsening health “issues” where the winter just really does a number on my eyes and skin, (diseases) and it’s getting worse each year. Truly, these last eight years have been a literal HELL for me, with the last three almost unbearable. The pain has been torturous. Pure. Torture.
Yep, my hope has waned, many times.
I have continually prayed for God to restore my hope especially when the pain didn’t let up for months on end. And prayed he would protect my sanity. (Those with chronic illness/disease or chronic pain will get this.)
And I have to continually fight my mind about looking too far into the future because my 40s & 50s have been the toughest years of my life. I have to tell myself to refocus and just live out today. Many times it’s been a refocusing minute by minute, quite literally.
I have to determine to lean into God hard, TODAY, and praise Him for what I can find that’s good, TODAY.
It’s not easy, I assure you.
HEALING in the SUN
So, hubby suggested a break from winter.
My eyes and skin started feeling better within a couple of days and thankfully, I didn’t have any major reactions like my last trip- uh, YAY!
Just not having that forced heat hit me all day, brought much relief and healing. And leaving the bleak, cold, overcast days just felt GOOD for the soul.
It wasn’t an easy drive for me, with this continual back pain, (It’s been a year now.) but I was sick of so many gloomy days I finally said, “I’ll chance the drive; let’s get outta here!”
I was glad in the end that we made that L O N G, 11.5 hr., drive. (I would’ve rather flown but it allowed me to use all my heating pads, medical devices, etc.. Boy, I sound OLD! (I’m a walking medical lab, now. ha.)
And luckily, my daughter and her husband were able to drive over from GA, joining us for two days. So, it was great to see them, too.
Playing with the sand, feeling the warmth of the sun soaking in, and just having face-to-face conversations with my daughter, just the two of us, as we waded in the water was just what the doctor ordered.
I also realized this was the FIRST time, in YEARS, I could go on a vacation and not fear the sun due to getting off my immune suppressing drug. YAY!!!!! Â (*Sun exposure is not allowed due to skin cancer risks.)
That alone makes a vaca a VACA! 🙂
Digression: I bought this bracelet one night at a restaurant and earlier that morning found this cute, little shell… had to dig down into the water to grab it before I got knocked over by a wave. My daughter was right by my side when I spotted it. 🙂
Didn’t find any more shells quite this perfect. 😉
REALITY
Now we’re back.
And the heat is blowing.
And my sweats and socks are back on. 😦
(going from shorts to sweats=just not cool)
I’m physically suffering again. UGGH.
Yeah, I might have (or might not have) told my husband I may be moving ahead of him.
I leave you with the sights and sounds of the beach. ENJOY!
