Sorting for a New Season

It is oddly warm here in the mountains, much more like summer than mid-spring.  It reminds me of childhood summer nights at my grandparents' house in Greenwood, SC, where I would wake up in the middle of the night to realize the night had gotten slightly cool-ish.  The streetlight coming in through the window of my current mountain house reminds me of the big light that illuminated my grandparents' back yard.

I am in the middle of shifting my schedule, in part because of the heat, but mostly because of all the construction and tree/lot clearing around Lutheridge.  I need to get out for a walk before the men and their heavy earth moving equipment swing into action.  Yesterday I walked just after 6 a.m., and it was much more peaceful.  It's a walking time that will work throughout summer.

The problem with this plan is that I might not get back to writing.  Yesterday I had an ear appointment at 9, so any writing time I had was effectively over once I went for my walk.  I need to get back to writing before sunrise, instead of doing the internet zipping around that I usually do.

I am doing CPE this summer, and I need to use this time wisely, so that I have good practices in place by the time it starts on June 9.  I woke up thinking about the stacks of books that could be boxed and taken to my school office eventually.  They aren't necessarily the books that bring me comfort or the books that I want to have access to as the house remodel continues--in other words, it won't be like my office at the places I worked in South Florida.  But it would get them out of the way, and it would let me postpone making a decision on their final destination.  There are books of theology that I might want to let go of now, if I could figure out where to send them.  I do realize that if I don't want them, it's unlikely that they will find a good home.  

One last thing I want to remember from the past two weeks.  After the Create in Me retreat, I had a bag full of yarn that people had brought for projects and didn't want to take home.  Our local library has a basket of free yarn, so I unloaded our contributions to the basket.  A woman had been lingering, and she said, "My daughter has her eye on your yarn. She and her sister crochet and knit, and their teenage budgets can't afford much new yarn." 

I said, "Let me scoot over, so you can start seeing what's here. Take as much as you want."  I also offered her the plastic knitting needles that someone had left on my Create in Me table.

The teenager took the plastic knitting needles and much of the yarn, and I ended up giving her the reusable grocery bag that I had used to transport the yarn.  She acted like I had given her a gift of gold, and that reaction made me so happy.  

It's good to remember that my castaways might be someone else's treasure, and I can't always be sure of what will be what:  treasure, extra garbage, useful or not.  As I shift into the next season, let me remember.