I love "A-Ha!" Moments. That brilliant stroke of insight that comes when you set aside your ego investment and focus the microscope on your teeny tiny little mammalian brain. The rush of clarity knocks your socks off. Whenever I find myself sorely disappointed in something or someone, I have to sit back and ask myself, "What was my expectation here?" "Was it realistic?" "What was my motive?" "What part did I play in the disappointing outcome?" "What could I have done differently?" I have to be honest in this conversation. We are so quick to place the blame for our disappointments at the feet of someone else…to become the victim.

A couple of years after my second husband and I split up, a friend's husband became ill and died six weeks later. It was barely time for her to let the idea sink in that she was losing him when the brain tumors took him. A group of us went to a friend's house one evening to gather and eat up the leftovers of the massive amount of food served at the church after the funeral. My friend Chris gathered a couple of us gals together and said she wanted to take the new widow to Mexico to give her a break and get her away. I agreed this was a good idea but was shocked when she proposed we leave 36 hours later! It's the most spontaneous thing I have ever done and honestly, I have no earthly idea how our friend managed to do this three days after burying her husband. She was a stronger woman than me.

I only open my mouth to change feet. Ever feel that way? A dozen words. Spoken while tired. Spoken without thinking. Spoken while grieving. They caused some hurt feelings which in turn caused a lashing out which caused my feelings to be hurt as well.

I have been so occupied with making this move, getting settled in, and getting the house ready for winter. I guess I wasn't being as in tuned to my aunt as I should have been. Bless her heart. She has had this place all to herself for the last six years. I have tried to be sensitive to that, but I will have to try harder. This cannot be easy for her. To feel like you're losing control. And we are both very strong willed, independent women. We are bound to butt heads on occasion.

I love my family….every single one of them. We are each as different as is humanly possible. We're like a jigsaw puzzle. One piece makes no sense but you put us all together and a bystander can easily see how we turned out the way we did!

My aunt and I came over the mountains on Tuesday to my cousin's house. I love, love, love coming here! There are few places in the world where I am so open, silly, happy, and completely comfortable in my own skin. This is one of those places. What you see is what you get and you always know where you stand in this house. These are some of the hardest working, unpretentious people you would ever want to meet. They lived in a tiny little trailer home with three kids while they built this house so they could do it without owing a soul a thing. They cut and sawed their own logs and built it all by hand and it is a sight to behold. It's built on a hillside overlooking a longview over the state line into Virginia. They are big and loud and saucy and full of fun and life. I am so proud to be their family!

This world scares me. I miss Mr. Virgo's strong arms around me more than ever, knowing I would be protected from all harm. Period. No questions. Now, there are tons of questions. Who is protecting me? Who will save us? God, of course, so I can rest in that. I am not delving into the issue of right or wrong here. Someone is always right. Someone is always wrong. Yin/yang. Light/dark. Good/evil. It has been this way forever. But, it's what we DO with that…how we react…that is the issue here. The human race is tired. We've been beaten up. Robbed of our peace by terror. Gone are the innocent Camelot years. I can feel the jagged energy in the world. It's harsh…like the static on a TV station you accidentally switch to and the sound is too loud. It's too loud for me, this world. It hurts…my ears, my head, my heart. I want to stand up and scream STOP! Stop it! You're hurting me. You're hurting my grandbabies. You're hurting us all.

I spent the day yesterday baking. I made a yellow cake with penuche frosting. Have any of you had that? My grandma always had a yellow cake with penuche frosting at family dinners. It was baked in a sheet cake pan and I dearly loved that frosting. It's made with butter and brown sugar and confectioners sugar. Ok….it's just sugar…spreadable, caramelized, burry sugar! Then I baked a double batch of corn bread. This was for the Hunter's Chili/Soup Bean Supper at the community building last night. Yes, my friends…I'm sure if you have never spent time in our neck of the woods, you are not aware that yesterday started a national holiday. It was the opening day of rifle deer season! Schools actually SHUT DOWN for the first week. Grown men quit their jobs if they think their boss won't let them off for hunting season. People dressed in camo, rifles in their gun racks, muddy four wheelers in the backs of their muddy trucks, shots ringing out from every hilltop and holler. Man oh man…it's Carhartt Heaven here! So, we had our supper last night and the fellers sat around to chew the fat fer a while. The old guys telling these young whipper snappers how it was done in their day…each tale bigger than the last. What a hoot!

Let's do lunch some day, you and I. Let's go to a bar at 10am and order a martini because we can. Let's ride a carriage in the park with fancy hats and a box of chocolates. Let's fly a kite in a tutu. Let's dance nekkid around a campfire with our tiaras in the moonlight. Let's be ripe and old and delicious and loud! Let's live in the sunshine. And….let's hold that sacred space and wait for each other when we cry….knowing we'll come back when we're ready.

A couple of weeks ago I asked you to lift up one of our own Marshmallow Ranchers in prayer. Gloria has a large mass, presumably ovarian cancer, and she is having a total hysterectomy this morning. There are issues with her blood clotting too easily as well. Please lift her up again today….that the mass is isolated, that they get clean margins, that there is no lymph node involvement, that the surgeon's hands are skilled and his/her mind is fresh, that she get through this quickly and as painlessly as possible, and that her family have the strength to get through this and support her with their love. If you are not a prayerful person, that's fine…send her some love, light, and good healing energy and thoughts. Any time we concentrate and lift up another, we raise the vibration of the world and that is good juju all the way around.

I spent yesterday morning helping my aunt make pies for last night's "Sing". She used prepared pie crust for the very first time. She insisted she bake a scrap of it ahead of time because if it wasn't "fit to eat" she was going to throw it out and make her own. Her tremor is so bad now, it is painful to watch her try to do the things we take for granted…beating egg whites, stirring filling as it cooks, rolling out crust. As I held the pan for her and she scraped the hot lemon filling into her crusts, she said "Well, this is my Waterloo. I may make pies for family, but these are the last for the Sings." It hurt my heart a little to hear her recognize her limitations. She is such a proud woman. I told her that was just fine…she had done a good job all these years. Folks will understand. Still…passages. The endings that inevitably come. Those little steps…admissions…confessing the infirmities of age tug at your heart strings…whether they are from those you love or from your own lips. She is happy I am here. She was staring down the abyss…alone…as was I. We are two peas now, this wonderful, graceful, beautiful woman and I.

One of the first women campers that I met in Colorado was Michelle. Fun, funny, intelligent, and one heck of an event coordinator. Love her to pieces!

I become friends with a gal that graduated from my high school the year before me. We grew up less than two blocks apart but she seemed so much older than me because she rode a horse. I know…go figure. We connected on FB and I talked her into joining Sisters on the Fly.