Blessings

If you know me personally, then you know that for the last month and a half I have been struggling with a house that has become way too quiet.  You see, Donald and I are parents to two sons.  To say that we have been blessed is perhaps one of the largest understatements ever.  We have been blessed abundantly, and we personally feel that our blessings come from God.   We acknowledge Him as the source of all that is good in our lives.

Living here in Somerset County it is sort of easy to see God all around us especially at this time of year.  The picture above was taken at Troll Lake on Saturday evening.  The light was going fast and the reflection of the trees in the water was beautiful.  To describe Somerset County in the fall as just beautiful feels in some ways trite.  The landscape is truly a masterpiece, again a blessing we believe from God.

But back to my struggle.  The house is empty.  I hate it.  It is in the right order of things.  Children come, they disrupt our lives, they make their mark and then they go.  For some parents this is good, for me....not so much, the leaving part that is.  But I know that it is right and I know that it is how it was set to be.  But I don't have to like it.

But I have used this time to reorganize my thoughts and feelings.  I find myself referring to more things as blessings. I use my extra time to get out and shoot the landscape of Somerset County and I see it as blessings.

One of the biggest blessings in my life was my grandmother Vera Wahl.  Since the kids have moved to college I have found myself missing her more.  A friend told me once about the loss of her family member that instead of missing them less she found the longing to intensify.  She described it as being homesick.  An intense homesickness that made her feel as if she could hardly take one more minute of the time away.  This was years after the passing of her loved one.  I kind of get that too. Something at Cascio's this week has  made me long for my Gram intensely.   That would be these:

I know weird isn't it?  Here is the deal, when I was a new bride my grandmother and I would get together and can peaches.  She taught me how to peel them and put them in the jar so they would be pretty and we would sit for hours and work on a bushel of peaches.  I would enjoy every second of her company that day and reap the pleasure of that time whenever I opened a jar of those beautiful Sun-Hi peaches.  Eventually, I had the boys and she got older and canning a bushel of peaches went by the wayside.  But I can't look at a jar of home canned peaches without being taken back to her basement where all the canning and freezing was accomplished.

We got these jars of Old Fashioned Peaches and while they aren't nearly as good as my grandmother's canned peaches, they are a very nice substitute.  I encourage you to try them.  I know they make me nostalgic every time I walk past the jars.

I know this blog is a bit more personal today then I thought I would go. Forgive me for that.  I won't do this often.  I will continue to spend my time shooting the Somerset County landscape and bringing it to you here to enjoy.  I have received feedback from folks who live away telling me they enjoy seeing my shots of Somerset County, it reminds them of home.  To those folks I hope you continue to feel blessed by my photography.

My thought to you today is to be a blessing to someone, somewhere and give thanks to the One "from whom all blessings flow."