In my last column (July/Aug. edition), I wrote about my transition and relocation to a new job and new city. I felt like a flower that had been uprooted in the garden and was resting in the bucket with a bit of familiar soil and just enough water to tide me over until I was transplanted.
Well, I have now been planted in a new garden and am home in Lima; still getting acclimated to my new surroundings and beginning to experience new life.
The change has been enormous and the familiarity of my comfort zone was blown apart, but it’s an exciting change, and I welcome this new adventure.
I finally had that garage sale that I had intended for the last five or more years. We sold our home so I was forced to do some serious sorting. It is amazing how much “stuff” we accumulate. So the garage sale was a purging. In fact, the whole moving process has been a purging. It has helped me realize what is really important as I sift through what to keep, to sell, to give away, to pitch.
And, I have to tell you, there is freedom in purging!
The garage sale itself was an exhausting, yet rewarding, endeavor.
We made a pretty good haul on what we sold, but there were other rewards, too. I met and spent more time with some of my neighbors during those two days than I had in the 10 years we lived there. And I met lots of new people. It was a pleasure to interact with folks.
My daughter, Darcy, and grandson, Ben, came down to help. We would have been hard-pressed to pull it off without her help. We worked like dogs getting our “store” ready for opening day, but the bonus was getting to have them for four days.
Papa Jerry set Ben up with his own little gig selling pop and water. He did pretty well, too. It’s hard to resist a smiling 8-year-old boy wanting to make a sale.
On another note: We’ve put a lot of focus on horses in this issue of Salt. We know that horses play such an integral part in the lives of many in southwest Ohio. We wanted to look in depth at just how some lives are impacted by the animals they love.
I’ve always been kind of a “cowgirl wanna be,” even though my life around horses has been somewhat limited. But I have been around horses enough to appreciate their beauty, their grace, their strength.
I’ve watched my son, John, and his dad before him, work a “green-broke” horse with a mind of his own into a horse obedient to his master. On that first day of working that horse, you see an animal resisting the rope, the saddle, the rider; wild-eyed, bucking and rebelling against any kind of control. Miraculously, after a couple of days, that same horse is calm and relaxed with saddle and rider on its back, responding to the gentle touch of the rein on its neck.
I have thought many times how I want to be like that horse: gentle strength under the control of the master.
It’s not hard for me to become influenced by the chaos around me or to get “spooked” by something new or strange in my world.
But I find that when I surrender my will to the Master, there is peace. I experience freedom. I trust that He is control.
I hope this issue of Salt brings new insight and appreciation for all the horsing around that goes on here Ohio.
Enjoy! And please pass the Salt…
Pam
Pamela Stricker, publisher
ID, 'source', true); $sourcelink = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'sourcelink', true); $sourcestring = '' . __('SOURCE','gabfire') . ''; if ($sourcelink != '') { echo "
$sourcestring: $source
"; } elseif ($source != '') { echo "$sourcestring: $source
"; } // Display pagination $args = array( 'before' => '' . __('Pages:','gabfire'), 'after' => '
', 'link_before' => '', 'link_after' => '', 'next_or_number' => 'number', 'nextpagelink' => __('Next page', 'gabfire'), 'previouspagelink' => __('Previous page', 'gabfire'), 'pagelink' => '%', 'echo' => 1 ); wp_link_pages($args); // Display edit post link to site admin edit_post_link(__('Edit','gabfire'),'','
'); // Post Widget gab_dynamic_sidebar('PostWidget'); ?>