I ate something last Saturday that tore me up.  I was so sick I thought dying might be preferable.  And just when I thought I might be getting better, I came down with a fever, aching joints, headache, etc., etc.  For the first time in my life, I was having a reaction to a flu shot.  It is still better than getting full blown flu.  I am starting to think I am going to live.  Not up to par yet, but a little better.

Being sick is such a waste of time.  I had a lot of things that I had planned to do today.  Instead, I spent the day in bed.  Stupid, stupid waste of time.

Friday, when I went to Red Rock Canyon, I climbed up an escarpment of rocks to get to the top of one of the cliffs where a maple was in full "orange and red."  And pick some leaves.  They were so very pretty.  Pat called the next day and said, "Mom, I am so proud of you.  You didn't let those rocks stop you."  It was probably stupid at my age, but she held onto me and up we went.  With Pat pushing and pulling and me saying, "This is stupid."  And Tom, who is still recovering from ten broken bones from his bicycle accident saying, "We can do it."  But I am glad I did it.  It was fun.  Pat is the one that took me down into the back ten acres of her farm to pick morel mushrooms.  In a dry gulley with trees rotting and lying on the ground everywhere.  And ticks and chiggers.  She keeps me young.

I love the world that God created.  There are so many interesting, and beautiful things to see.  You need to go see them when you are young.  God's world will make more of an lasting impact on your children than DisneyWorld.  I would love to see the Sequoias again.  And the Grand canyon, the Maine Coast and Yellowstone.  I would love to stick my toes in the Pensacola white sand.  I would like to drive through the painted desert again.  America has so many wonderful natural wonders.  One of the perks of military life is that you are always going across the land to somewhere else.

"He has made everything beautiful in his time: also he has set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God made from the beginning to the end."  Ecclesiastes 3:11.  You may not be able to find it all out, but you can try to see some of it.