Danielle Blog

Flowers for Friday – purple iris

I have a bunch of flower pictures that I really like, and some that I’d forgotten that I’d taken. This has always been one of my favorites. I took it with my usual camera (Sony Cyber-shot) at a botanical gardens in Austin, Texas. The cool thing is that while I was looking for it on my older computer, I found a picture that I’d completely forgotten about. I can’t wait to show you that one! (all in good time, patience is a virtue)

As I was walking to the train station the other day, and thinking about Flowers on Friday, I happened to think that the liturgical color for Lent is purple… I’m not sure if I have enough purple flower pictures to cover all of the Fridays of Lent, but we’ll see. Or rather, you’ll see, right?

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New topic

On my train ride home, I had a real breakthrough. I was so excited, I wanted to call HB, but I knew he was having this business dinner with some muckity-mucks. So, I instantly thought how I could tell you instead. But it is regarding work, so I’ll have to be a bit vague.

Here goes.

Right now, I have a big task ahead of me at work. At times, lately, it has felt like there is this huge, scary mountain in front of me, that is so large… that I start wondering if I’m ever going to be able to climb it.

If you’ve seen the Return of the King in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there is this scene where Frodo and Sam are utterly exhausted,
and worn out
and tired,
and they look across the nasty ugly, rocky land (it might’ve been Minas Morgul?) and it looks like they will never get to Mount Doom. When I see that scene, Mount Doom looks so far away, and the obstacles ahead of them are so great, and I think to myself that they will never reach it in time.

And I’ve felt that way at times lately. Big mountain. Not enough time. And even in the midst of my joy this evening, I started thinking about how I’d tell this story, and I envisioned the mountain, and I got all teary over it. I get all teary thinking about it, right now.

So, here I am, facing this mountain and feeling
tired
and burnt out,
and my Sam will not be with me the whole time for my journey…
… and something good fell in my lap today.

Was it my guardian angel looking out for me? or Providence? (as they’d say in Anne of Green Gables)

The thing that fell into my lap showed me that some things ARE possible! Something that we’ve tried, and couldn’t get to work has now been done by someone else. And they give a decent description of how to get it to work. And if I can get it to work, I can get three times the information that I was going to be able to get if I couldn’t get it to work.

This Good Thing makes the mountain looks a little less big. and maybe not so insurmountable.

And the other exciting part is that I have something that I need to be able to explain, and this thing that fell into my lap today also helps me explain some of what I am dealing with.

Which is very, very happy.

(I’m sorry this is so vague)

So, maybe I’m actually moving up that mountain a little better than I realized.

And I think that each of you, are my Sam, at different times.