Dawsonwood Is Alive and Well

Dear Blogging Friends,

Dawsonwood Cottage is alive and well. I'd better post this on Facebook if I can figure out how to do it, because some of you seem to have become Facebook addicts and I have not posted here since last spring. This is about what God is doing in our lives.

We welcomed an international student from Vietnam, Vu Pham, on September 7. Fifteen years old, he is studying in Bracebridge this year in Grade 10, but doing Grade 11 math and chemistry. He joined the soccor team last night and is off to his first tournament today!!! It is fun having a young person about the house. So much fun indeed, that I did not hesitate in the slightest to say yes to offering shorter term accomodation to another student. "D" is finishing Grade 12 and, small world that it is, knows Vu in another context.

So the Knightons are experiencing the excitement of teenaged boys after raising our two girls. Rob's knees are aching from several games of tennis with Vu over the weekend and I am actually cooking for the first time in what seems like months. Well, it is months because my wounded hand has made all manual labour difficult. It is also a challenge to make meals which have even a semblance of Asian acceptability. Vu has given me the skinny on stir fried vegetables and there will never be soggy stir fry in this house again!

Yes, the hand. Still swelling irratically. Still sore. Still scarred looking. An anomaly they say, with respect to the scarring. Personally, I don't care about the scar. I have lived long enough to deserve every war wound on my body. However, this scar seems to have a life of its own, becoming raised and prominent and dry after certain activities and inflamed after that. Sometimes massage helps, sometimes it seems to make things worse. I would welcome tips from anyone who has experience of scar tissue.

The next few weeks are exceedingly busy. Rob is going back to school. No not his PhD.. As a matter of fact, he is selling his complete library of theology. He's on a different track at this stage of his life. He is studying spiritual direction at Tyndale University, figures he has done this work for the last thirty years in various ways, but is choosing to do this intentionally for whatever years God gives him. His contract with The Salvation Army ended when that organization reinvented its structure for supplying pastoral care to its ministers. Change calls for a creative response.

We are into autumn birthday season. Rachael will turn 6. Sarah will turn 30 and AAAAAAAGH!, I will turn a factor of these numers. No not 180! Rob and I have our 40th wedding anniversary on the 14 October. We are having a family celebration on the Sunday of Canadian Thanksgiving and taking a cruise in November. Barb and Dylan and children will move into Dawsonwood while we are away to look after 'the boys.' Sarah and Jeff are celebrating their anniversary on October 16. Resigned that I would never get my 'wear' out of it, I finally sent the expensive dress I bought for that day to charity. Sarah said, "Mom, get over it. It's been eight years!" Unbelievable.

And all you young mothers out there...don't be smug. Time flies whether you are having fun or not. So have fun. It will be your turn soon. You'll be filling your empty nests with other mother's sons. People will be astonished when they see your wedding photos. They will say politely, "Oh yes, I can see that is you. The smile is the same." Your daughters will enthuse, "Mom, you were beautiful." You will look into the mirror and scarecely recognize your own faces.

Bless you all.