Don't Waste Time

This week’s adventure involved a road trip to Michigan with my mom. She is enjoying some change in scenery, a different pace to her normal daily schedule, and some extra visiting with several family members. In northern Indiana we took a slight detour from the regular way to Michigan to have an opportunity to visit with my Aunt K. (mom’s sister), my cousins K. & T., their daughter H. & their grandson T. We kept the visit short since we had several hours still to drive to arrive at Higgins, but fitting in this opportunity to connect with family was a blessing.

Also, during this trip to Higgins mom had the chance to catch up with her Euchre partner P., who came up from Novi for the weekend to hang at the lake and enjoy some card games, campfires and meals with the family.

The excitement level of Michigan Up North life is wonderfully simplistic, summed up by G., after all 4 of us piled into the car simply to take Teddy to the dog park to provide the free entertainment for the evening. Setting him loose with all those puppy friends is actually fun to watch. Besides, knowing he’s burning off a lot of energy that results in a calmer demeanor for the rest of the evening is a win/win. Growing up we had a dog named Fluffy who lived forever it seemed. Mom is enjoying having a pup around. The dog park antics was fun to observe as well as a game of fetch along the shore and playing a chase game with a light beam. I think its Teddy’s inner cat coming out when he’ll chase light reflections across the room.

During an afternoon enjoying the sunshine, besides watching Teddy play, mom spotted a snake and a frog on our beach. I did not see the snake, but was able to snap a picture of the frog. From mom’s description it sounds like it was a Butler’s Garter snake. I guess it was just the day for both reptile and amphibian visitors, neither are normally spotted on the beach so that was an interesting treat.

Thanks to the kindness of our wonderful neighbors who have a pontoon boat that mom is able to get on and off of, we were all treated to a sunset cruise this week. Sipping on wine, visiting with friends, watching as the sun set and as mom put it, “getting out on the water” was a highlight to mom’s vacation.

A favorite rainy day activity is working on the jigsaw puzzle.

The exercise of writing this blog for a year had a stated purpose, “that I didn’t want to simply let this year pass like so many others…wondering where in the world did this year go.” I have benefited from reflecting on many aspects of life: change, loss, mortality, friendship, and remote adventures to name a few. Also, I am seeing accomplishment of some of my goals. Hard to believe I have crossed over the half-way point of these submissions. A common theme that has repeated itself for me these last 7 months is that life is fragile and to not waste the precious gift of time since we really don’t know how much time we have to do the things we want to. For me, these last several months I have challenged myself physically hiking rugged trails and emotionally sometimes, needing to come out of my comfort zone while out on a hiking adventure. I am reminded spending time with mom that the ordinary paths we’ve traversed many times in life may someday become our rugged trails and the heights we have to climb, are simply porch steps. Several lessons unfolded this week, most notably to frequently reevaluate priorities, to deeply value the gift of time, and to use it wisely.