You Make My Life the Best, And I am Grateful

 We took a long awaited weekend get-away "up north". Not to raise the controversial question of whether or not it is OK to leave everyone and everything behind for three days and just be alone as a couple; I would say this. It works for us. We rejuvenate ourselves and our marriage with quiet and walks in the woods. Some of the chaff of the last two years was blown away for good, realizing that we made it through the hard things intact...maybe even better for it. Although I tend to think I could have learned to extend grace and forgiveness through less drama, right? I certainly would like to give it a try in the next two years.
    On our way  up the shore of Lake Superior we talked about how long it had been since we did a whole weekend away. Elv wanted to believe it had been one year.
     "Remember, we had all that snow and we came up in a snowstorm and did all that snowshoeing..." He didn't say it, but I knew he was remembering his trek out to get our food and luggage that we had left behind a mile away in the car when we couldn't drive any further.  I stayed home, sipping coffee by the stove, puttering in the kitchen, tidying and cleaning away the odd left-overs of the cabin being empty for too long. He was not impressed with me.

   Here is a link for  Two Years ago . I wonder where the snowshoes are by now. I hope someone has them stowed safely for a future snowy April day.
    The lake was just as blue as you see in this picture. We took a picnic lunch with us and Jeeped ourselves to the highest spot behind the cabin. This blue almost three miles away was clearly visible to us.

 I said we came through intact; but I will admit right here that we both have fears and insecurities that are new to us. I deal with depression and he with doubting my support for where we are now in our church life and family. Every day I rephrase in my mind what I am about to say for fear I will add to the negative side of the balance.
I am Dory; but forever grateful that he is NOT Nemo, and is not looking for his Father or family, having established those things with his Heavenly Father steadfastly. So I tell him, "Keep swimming, keep swimming." And I wonder why I am here and how did we get here. It is good for both of us that I trust him, so maybe this is enough for now.

Friday evening we went out for supper.  Northern Lights restaurant was mostly empty. The quiet radio was tuned to some nice "oldies" so we sat across from each other and smiled. We both ordered fish for our suppers. Where else will you have the perfect setting to visit or not and remember another time and place just so, while we were dating. Canoes and every sort of northern fishing, hunting, and trapping paraphernalia hung from the ceiling or were lined up on all the walls, the Lake just outside our window. There was one waitress for the whole place which shows you how quiet it really was.

We took walks everyday.

 This shoreline is below Kathy's cabin. I post it here just to show you one of the moods of Lake Superior. It was a grey, cloudy day, so the lake mirrored that. I have a picture from several years ago of this exact spot with the lake in a vivid blue instead.

    A pair of mallards have moved in to live on the little creek that flows under the  bridge that Elv built a few
years ago.

The old fence line is overgrown with new spruce trees growing right through. I followed Elv through the woods trying to not get my feet wet. We got pretty good at skirting the swamps. One day we decided to see what feeds the little creek just west of the cabin. We both got wet feet that time and ended up on the trail in the woods that takes us up to the top of Buck Mountain. The ruts were full of water, so we used sticks, wishing for shovels, and dug channels for the water to get away. We walked back to the cabin and stood on the foot bridge and imagined that now it was flowing a bit faster. Non-essential and unimportant, but relaxing and interesting. If only all of earth's problems were so easily remedied.

Elv added a bit of wiring to the cabin while we were there. Each time we go up we try to invest a little improvement.
We sat down to play scrabble once and in my search for a pen and paper to keep score; we found the notebook left there by friends for guests to journal in. We found two entries from the folks who had been there twice in March. That really made my day. Thank You, Patti for faithfully keeping the journal. I added to it for you this time.

        Cookstove Toast
Sliced bread
Butter
Jam
    Slather butter on both sides of the bread slices. Lay tin foil on the cooler end of the cookstove and lay your buttered slices on it. Turn to brown both sides perfectly. Cover the top side with jam and eat it with a fork off your plate, or from your hand with plenty of napkins handy. There's nothing like it. Anywhere.

Lattins made a mousse type cake for a friend's birthday and saved back a bit of mousse just for me. What's nicer than a cut glass goblet of chocolate mousse thrust into your hand to take home and enjoy by the fire with one's husband?

We headed home Sunday afternoon. We came the long way. I can't even tell you where we were exactly some of the time, but here's an old barn over by the village of Gordan, WI.

 Took these with my phone on the way home.
The perfect ending to a wonderful weekend. Thank You Elv for the nice time we had. You make my life the best and I am grateful.