The Fire Pit

We have made it one week with a puppie!  YAY!  CoCo is also 15 weeks old today and, as we have come to find, she is smart as a whip!  I think sometimes she is smarter than us, and she is still learning.... wow... maybe WE should go to school instead of her! 

This morning we drove down to Hartsville, SC to lead worship at a new church.  The Living Church is a nondenom. church in downtown Harstville at the Center Theatre.  We enjoyed being with them this morning, very nice folks!   We came home and ate some girl scout cookies and relaxed for a couple minutes.  A lady came by the bank the other day selling girl scout cookies, and I knew Nathan liked a kind with Peanut butter in it, but where he's from all the girl scout cookies are named something different than the girl scout cookies where Im from!  Crazyness isnt it?  Caramel Delights are called Samoas, peanut butter sandwhices are called dos e dos ( the kind he likes)!   Just though you'd like to know that bit of information..

But, more to the point of my story...... Today was a BEAUTIFUL day today.  The sun was shinning without a cloud in the sky, with the temps in the 60's.  Im SO ready for spring.  I cannot wait to get outside and work in my yard.  Plant flower gardens, and maybe even a small real garden.  This is what I dream about latley.  The spring and summer months.... So today, we got a little taste of it!  I got my book Captivating and ventured out onto the deck to relax, read and soak up the rest of the afternoon outside.  I was out there for about 2 minutes when I had a brilliant idea!  One of our wedding presents was a fire pit/ice bucket.  When we lived at our house in China Grove we would light a fire in our fire pit and stay outside in the afternoons in the spring and fall.  These memories are some of the BEST that I have of our marriage.  We would work all day out in the yard and then in the afternoon Nate would fire up the grill and we could have dinner outside around the fire pit.  We would light candles on the deck and just sit out there and talk for hours.  When we sold our house we lived in an apartment for about 5 months, and these were probably the worst 5 months of my life!  I was home sick!  Litterally!   Dont get me wrong, Im VERY thankful that we had the apartment as a roof over our heads, but there is just something about having your own house, with your own yard, and your own deck.  I remember I called Nathan at work one day and told him I was home sick.  Those memories of our good times on the deck and our fire pit were just so strong, and I wanted that so bad again.  I knew it would come around again once we found a house, but like I said.  Those 5 months were pretty horrible and they felt like they would never end.  So, when we moved into our new house, we decided to get a new fire pit as well.  The other one never REALLY got a fire going and sat too high to really catch any heat off of it.  So we bought a new one a couple months ago, and the weather and our schedules had just not permitted us to use it until today!  So, back to me on the deck reading, I asked Nathan to build me a fire, and that he did!  This thing is awesome, it kept us warm for several hours!  We sat out on the deck and read our books while CoCo cuddled on our laps.  She is such a lap dog, and very lazy I might add...smart but lazy.  This did my soul good like a vacation does your soul good. We sat outside until the fire was out, which was about 2 or 3 hours, and now we are inside in our usual positions on the couch.  Duke is on, and Im halfway through this episode of The Amazing Race,(GO JEFF AND JORDAN!!) we are splitting them up.  Its only fair!  Coco is on Nate's lap, and life is good!  What is the one thing that does your soul good?  What calms you, and relaxes?