I may not be dancing in the starry lights of New York City this weekend.

My toes may not be covered in the shimmering San Diego waves of summers past.

But I am spending my moments in the highest town in the nation.

10, 200 feet high.

A place where the sky and the evergreens become a breathtaking blend of sapphire and emerald.

My afternoon moments are spent,

not rushing to sessions,

not wandering boardwalks,

but walking to town with flowery glasses shading my eyes,

hair tied in two {piggie} tails,

and a weary-legged toddler tied to my back.

This is {real} style.




Evening twilight hours:

Antiquey games = happy.




And the perfect ending to mountain summer daylight?

Pretty purple bowls.

Heavy spoons.

Overstuffed red couches.

and

mint.chip.

~*~

I’ll soon be meandering through conference hotel halls,

with heart friends talking, hugging, grinning.

I’ll spend a summer near the beach again.

But today?




It’s all good.

And speaking of good,
don’t forget to enter to win
the pretties
(or a bit of handsome}
from Mimi’s Babies Etsy!

We brought a rug for sitting on

Our lunch was in a box

The sand was warm. We didn’t wear

Hats or shoes or socks.

Waves came curling up the beach

We waded, it was fun.

Our sandwiches were different kinds.

I dropped my jelly one.

~ The Picnic, by Dorothy Aldis

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Apricots and gillyflowers…

~ A Calendar, by Sara Coleridge

Summer in the mountains brings hikes instead of wave-jumping,
kabob grilling instead of sandy In-N-Out burgers.

It’s cool, green grass under our feet instead of warm, golden sand in our toes.

Bright blue above us instead of emerald oceans before us.

New spot on the planet. New activities to fill our days. New colors to brighten our world.

It’s still winter here.

Snowy and cold.

Our slippers still rest at our bedsides.

We woke up to a white world this morning, melting quickly in the morning sun.

But within a few hours, the flakes were falling again with even greater fury.

Note to self:

Do not try to wear open, springy heels to an evening church service when several inches of snow cover the ground.

Seventeen degrees and snow in May.

This is life in the high Colorado Rockies.

What’s the weather like where you are? Spring? Or maybe Summer?

Remind me that warmer weather always arrives eventually?

This is our back yard:

It is quite literally our backyard. That’s the back of our house, between the trees.

We do our walking and sledding and exploring in the middle of a (very, very old) snow-covered cemetery.

We’ve been trying to figure out what to tell our (very imaginative) almost four year old, when he thinks to ask about the funny shaped rocks with letters.

Well, son, there’s a bunch of dead people out back. Let’s go meet ‘em.

Personally, I could spend all day in a boomtown-mining-era cemetery. John and I have already taken a morning getting to know some of the families buried out there, learning their stories through numbers and names etched on stone.

My heart broke for the young Ella Foust, who lost a toddler the same year she bore another daughter, only to have the second little girl die at age 6. Ella followed both of them three years later, in 1895, at age 31. The space for James Foust’s name is empty, leading us to wonder if the grief drove him away from the snowy mountain town that claimed the lived of these three girls he loved.

I love an old graveyard.

But our almost four year old has the most ridiculously active imagination I’ve ever seen someone his age.

His talk of the friends we can’t see starts to freak me out a bit until I remind myself John reminds me that this is the boy who pretends and believes he’s 21 years old, can drive and is Peter Pan. Also, he mentions that thing about having a God who is bigger than anything or anyone else… dead or alive. And that we don’t personally believe that the dead, you know, walk the earth or anything.

Let’s hope that’s all true, I said with raised eyebrows and a hand on my hip. Because otherwise he’s gonna have a whole heap o’ new friends to play with in that backyard. And I’ll be alone with all of them as company for the next year.

Don’t worry, he replied with a smug grin. This is our cozy little mountain mining town, remember? They’ll all be nice ghosts.

I love-punched his arm.

Ok, Mrs. Ehlenfeldt, you can live just outside my back gate. I’d just better not find you making pancakes in my kitchen some morning.

What would you tell two extremely imaginative boys if YOU had a cemetery for a back yard?

We heave when we walk down the street. We’re lightheaded after bounding up the stairs. It takes effort to unload groceries from the truck to the kitchen. Boxes are much heavier than they were two weeks ago.

There are a lot of changes when one moves from being, literally, at sea level to a mountain village sitting at 10, 200 feet elevation. The severe lack of oxygen is a force with which to be reckoned.

I knew I’d have to seriously adjust my baking when I moved here. An extra quarter cup flour here, a little more baking powder there. But who would have thought that I’d have problems with my contact lenses–with my very vision? Or that I’d be ready for a nap by the time my little people hit their pillows each afternoon, and I’d still be needing toothpicks for my eyelids by nine o’clock at night? I didn’t foresee the voracious appetite that would set me into munchie mode by mid-morning every day.

(When I come up here to visit, I typically sleep a zillion extra hours, eat like a horse AND I lose weight. Go figure.)

(But I’ll take it.)

All of this is in addition to the freezing temps and the snow that lasts… well… most of the year.

Going from the lowlands to the high places isn’t exactly easy.

But people do it. Because it’s worth it.

Our Mountains ~ Summer

Breathtaking. Awe-inspiring.

Worth it.

What are your lowlands? Complacency? Self-righteousness? Cold-heartedness? Judgement? Anger? Bitterness?

What are the forces that drive you upward? Disillusionment? Betrayal? Confession? Brokenness? Loss?

Who are the companions that steal your oxygen? Shock? Despair? Anguish? Confusion? Abandonment? An aching spirit? Physical pain?

And what, oh beautiful friend, are the rewards? Redemption. Newness. Clarity. Beauty. Dancing. Wholeness. Restoration. Forgiveness. Jesus.

Altitude isn’t without difficulty. It pulls the very breath from our chests, affects our vision and is beyond exhausting.

But the fragile beauty, achingly alluring, can render the burning lungs, stinging eyes, chilly fingers and even the icy patches unspeakably valuable.

Leave the lowlands. Follow Him to the peaks.