Saturday Details

This morning, we had more places to go than we had cars and drivers to get us there, so I made two separate trips and dropped three girls off at their various responsibilities.  Craig came home early from a Stake 11-yr-old Scout Camporee and left shortly after to play golf with a friend.  And McKay spent the rest of the day camping and scouting.  So...at 9:30 this morning, I discovered that I had two whole hours with no one in my car or my house...which would actually stretch to more like 3 1/2 hours...wow!  When I realized my unexpected good fortune, my first thought was to tackle some of the million things on my personal list...groceries, baking, laundry, updating that budget I keep putting off...but nothing on the list sounded as appealing as the thought of sneaking off into the gorgeous day outside and taking some pictures.

So...that's what I did.  

Originally I set out with the intent to find some signs of fall, but I didn't ever find that.  Fall in Texas isn't quite as spectacular as fall in some other states.

What I did find, though, were some happy surprises...the kind of little details of the day that make you completely satisfied and content when you reflect on them at 10:00 at night...

1.  Two missionaries rode their bikes past me as I waited at a red light.  I waved and they enthusiastically waved back.  That's always a happy connection.  

2.  I sat at another intersection later, this one with no stop signs or lights or even any cars, trying to decide whether to turn left or right.  When I looked left, there was a big mop of black fur in the middle of the road.  And then it moved.  And then it started rolling back and forth in the patch of sunny asphalt where it was laying.  And then it got up and I realized it was a dog.  I couldn't even bring myself to take it's picture because I was so amazed at how blissfully unaware it was of anything but that sunny spot in the road.  I decided not to bother it and turned right.  

3.  I pulled over to get this picture...

and while I was sitting there, a car drove up next to me with a cute older couple in it.  The man rolled down his window and asked if I needed any help.  Isn't that SO nice!  He laughed when I told him I had just stopped to take a picture of the pretty hay bales.  

4.  The music that accompanies these drives really just makes the whole trip worth it most of the time for me.  Today I listened to that playlist up there underneath the blog header (that's pretty much what I always listen to when I drive) but it seemed to not-so-randomly shuffle to a lot of Boston and The Outfield.  Hooray! 

5.  And my very favorite little detail of the day was this...

I came flying around a corner and saw this gorgeous black horse with his entire head stuffed into his bale of alfalfa (or whatever it is that horses eat) so I immediately came to a screeching halt and took his picture...and I also might have had a brief conversation with him.  How fun to watch him thoroughly enjoying a hearty breakfast on a beautiful Saturday morning!  

The pace of the day picked up after I left the serenity of that drive.  But those two hours of complete immersion in the details of this day were exactly what I needed to sustain me through the rest of the craziness.  I am so grateful that peace and tranquility are available even when the temple is closed.  I'm grateful for a little free space in an otherwise cluttered day.  And I'm so grateful for the way Heavenly Father personalizes all the details in my life for me so that I stop worrying, stop running around, stop orchestrating...and just trust Him.  

"God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them." -John Piper