Category Archives: Nashville

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Back Porch Blogging

It’s 10pm and it’s still 71 degrees outside. I love the South!!

I’m on my porch, enjoying the evening and reading friends’ blogs. I’ve also been watching a couple of lightning bugs float around the trees in the (small) forest a few feet from my porch. Last night, coming home from Mosaic I drove through Ellington natural preserve. As I came across the long field that separates the preserve from civilization I saw literally hundreds of twinkling lights — fireflies blinking and dancing in the moonlight.

I love this place. It’s so magical. Everywhere I look, at every time of day, there is something beautiful to grab my attention and arrest my soul. Trees with all manner of flowering buds, streams running under canopies of green speckled with sunlight, ponds and small waterfalls, fireflies, thunderstorms, rocky hillsides, log cabins and tudor-style homes sitting side-by-side, an amazing diversity of people — the old country folk, the aspiring musicians, true-blue artists, Indians (not the native American kind, though I’m sure they’re here too), Latinos, African-Americans, Moroccans, Ethiopians, Iraqis, Thai, Greek and Egyptian. And then there are the immigrants…. 🙂

God is good to me. He gives me so much and seems to expect nothing in return. Last night it was the firefly field. Today is was good friends and good conversations. Tomorrow it will be a sunrise… and who knows what else.

I’m glad He loves me.  I feel like the luckiest, most blessed woman in the world.

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Mornings Are Much More Beautiful Than I Remember

At least that’s what it seems these days. Perhaps its just normal for spring in Nashville and this being my first year and all, it’s a novelty. Whatever it is, it’s stunning. Even at 6am.

As I drive to the Y each morning, passing the same beautiful homes with acres and acres of land on roads that feel like back-country lanes, I thank God for mornings. For Nashville. For my Life.

Weird. Not long ago I was begging God to let me die. Now here I am, thanking Him for not saying yes to my death wish.

I don’t know what I’m doing on this earth. I still don’t have any answers to the questions that have spun around in my head for the last two years. But right now it doesn’t seem to matter — my spirit is at rest.

Which gives my mind time to ponder new questions. And my heart strength to wrestle with different issues.

The last few days I’ve been listening to a lot of Erwin’s teaching cds. Especially one that Ron & Lynn sent me for Christmas. In it Erwin poses the question, "is it possible to love God and still have a bad day? To still have unfulfilled longings, unmet expectations, unrealized dreams?" As I listen, it reaffirms and reinforces the lessons I’ve learned over the last two years.

Yes, it IS possible to love God and have a bad day. And it IS possible to have a bad day and still be crazy in love with God. As I said yesterday, it’s in the depth, flavor and grittiness of real life that the Abundant LIfe is found. It’s those bad days I have that truly drive home to me how sweet and soulthirst-quenching life with Jesus is. Just having Him here. Beside me. At every moment of the day.

My attitude hasn’t been the greatest lately. Partly due to my being so much in my own head… It’s not that I’m in a foul mood, because I’m not. I’m genuinely enjoying life right now — which is a weird thing for me now. Its more that as I think through certain things, I get sort of agitated and rather snarky. I guess emotions are floating to the surface now from all manner of things and so I ride the waves as they come.

But I’m also finding that I’m checking myself a lot. I’m realizing when I’m not in the greatest of moods and doing my best to uncover the full extent of why (rather than striving to stuff the emotions down or "wish them into the corn field" as I used to do). Which puts me even more in my own head — as God and I process through all the emotions and discuss what to do with this stuff. I’m sure this must be unsettling for some of those around me. But I’m not sure what I can do about that.

Having the mornings to workout has given me time to cull through all the years of stuff collected in my heart and spirit and begin a sort of mental/spiritual Spring Cleaning — discarding used up worn out paradigms, getting rid of the mind-clutter and sweeping away the dust of old habits and thought patterns.

The drive back home for a shower and breakfast tends to take longer, as my country road route turns into a city thoroughfare for morning commuters. I don’t mind, it gives me time to enjoy the beauty of the morning, listen to the birds singing and let my mind wander….

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Through My Eyes

Here’s a quick glimpse of Nashville in Spring through my eyes. Its not a complete picture, because I ran out of film before I ran out of city. But hopefully it will give you a taste of the beauty I’m surrounded by in this amazing city.

(PS – These were taken today with my film camera and scanned by Eckard onto a cd…)


These are the trees I see outside my kitchen window every day. Amazing!


Sevenmile Creek runs right in front of my apartment complex


Even the Bumble Bees couldn’t resist the wonderful warm day and nearly clear blue skies


Isn’t this city beautiful!


I met some kids having a bake sale to raise money for a mission trip to Mexico

I stopped in at my favorite coffee house, Fido, and ran into a friend there.

Inside Fido

But I that roll got stuck in the bottom of my bag and didn’t get developed today. I’ll have it for you tomorrow.  However, I couldn’t resist posting this picture. It’s a typical scene at Fido

— coffee – check, Apple i/Power Book – check, headphones – check, wireless internet – check (Fido always provides)… you’re good to go.


I took this photo of Nashville’s skyline out the window of my car waiting at a red light. There are better views to be had of our beautiful and distinct skyline, but I ran out of film…. ::sigh:: See that funny looking spiky skyscraper on the far right? Everyone in town calls it "the Bat Tower" — because, well, you can see for yourself. It’s actually the Bell South Tower.


Here’s a view of the Bat Tower from my sunroof


Welcome to Music City!

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And it’s here

Along with the beauty and color of spring comes something this little southern California girl is just not used to at all. Severe allergies.

I haven’t been able to breathe for a week. I’m congested worse that the 405 at rush hour with a Sig alert. I sneeze for hours at a time, rest a little, then start the sneezing again. My eyes water, my throat itches and I’m exhausted from all the energy this allergy thing requires. Even with so much beauty outside, I was too tired and allergy-ridden to go out and enjoy it. And that’s just wrong.

I wouldn’t trade the beauty of a Nashville spring for all the gold in the world. But I’d sure be willing to trade my sinuses in for a much less sensitive, much hardier model. Know where I can find one?

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It’s Here!

The trees have finally woken from their winter naps and are starting to get dressed. ‘Bout time. I was getting tired of seeing naked trees everywhere. For the last few weeks I’ve been yelling at them from my porch and out my car windows and sunroof, "Wake up and get dressed!! It’s Spring!!"

Out my windows today I saw trees dressed in purples and reds and whites and greens… little bitty leaves springing up all over the place. Even the grass is waking up. It’s getting green again and spouting up in places where only brown dormant plants lay just a few days ago. Beautiful. Abosutely beautiful.

I love Nashville.

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Respite

It’s 9pm and I’m sitting on my porch in sweats and a t-shirt. The summer critters are already playing their nightly symphony, even though its still only March. Yes, I LOVE Nashville! You can’t do this in LA. You just can’t. Not even in summer.

The wind is starting to kick up a little. We’re expecting another massive storm to roll through sometime tonight or early tomorrow. More thunder and lightning. Just my kind of weather.

Even though I worked till 8pm tonight and I’m dead tired from no sleep last night and lots of staring at a computer and working to finish a some reports today, I’m at peace. Life is good. Even when it’s hard, it’s good.

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It’s Snowing! …. uh, well….

I can’t help it. I’m a little California girl who hasn’t seen a whole lotta snow in her adult life. So I turn into a giddy little kid every time we get flurries. It started snowing a few minutes ago and of course I just went bazerk! I grabbed my camera and tried to get some pictures, but it’s too dark to get decent pics… this is the best I could do.


Shortly after I took this, it stopped snowing. Oh, well. At least we got a dusting.