When Getting There is ALL of the Fun - Cadillac Ranch

I can't remember a time I wasn't in love with the thought of travel.  I was a preschooler when I watched my aunt board a tiny plane in Morgantown, West Virginia.  I wouldn't see her again for years.  I remember crying and asking why I was crying and why it made me sad.  The innocence of a child.  My aunt was making her way to Alaska to start a new life there.

Alaska became the far away place I originally found most interesting.  After all, I knew someone in that cold part of the world.

When I was seven, I was so excited because in my school in second grade we got pen-pals.  I can remember thinking Tulsa seemed so exotic from my small town in West Virginia where we had homemade lunches by a school cook in her 80s, no stoplight in town, and our Dairy Queen closed every winter because there wasn't enough demand for ice cream during snow storms.

3700 Square Feet of Garage Sale. Is that right?

To say I am overwhelmed right now seems trite, so let's just say I feel drowning in a sea of camel fur.  Does that give you a better idea?  How about drowning in camel hair that the health department once wanted to confiscate from my grandmother?  Yes, there is a story there, but not now. . .

It feels weird to say that my grandmother died recently.  She hadn't spoken to me in years.  I sent her an invite to my wedding thinking maybe there would be some reconciliation there, but the only relative I had was my dad's step-sister.  That's another story as well. . .

For the last few years, I have wanted to move. Badly.  Like really bad.  I inherited the house my mother -- she and Dad bought it when my husband was only 3 years old.  That's how long I have lived here. (I'm a tad older than he is.)  It's the site of where the priest said Last Rites for my mother, lifeless on the floor, the site where I watched Dad leave after almost 25 years of marriage to my mother, and countless other memories, and it seems the bad memories outweigh the good.  So I've been frantically selling on eBay for years.  (That's an affiliate link because disclosure. Plus there will be more affiliate links in this post.)  I went to my grandmother's estate auction and bought three carloads and one truck load full of stuff.  That's all from the place she was currently living.  My uncle (who I am starting to become friends with, but again, another story. . .) My uncle is wanting to turn the place where my grandmother once lived into a hunting cabin.  Grandma was a crafter.  Some of the stuff can be valuable, some of the stuff is just trash, and some of the stuff is just nothing but confusing.  (I even found a bouquet she made of used plastic spoons nestled in a coffee can because someone somewhere thought the idea was clever.)  But knowing there is some good stuff in there that would be tossed out, we are bringing it home and sorting through it.

Why God May Give You More Trials Than You Can Bear

Having memorized so much of the Bible, I cringe when I hear it misquoted.  I was in Bible quizzing in high school as I mentioned in my post about memorizing Scripture.

God will never give you anything you can't handle.

It's in the Bible, right?  Actually it isn't.  Most people think that is what I Corinthians 10:13 says, but let's take a look at that verse in a few different versions.

 ¹³ No temptation^[a] has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted^[b] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,^[c] he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.  (NIV)