Dear Reader:

Yesterday about half of my fourteen vinyl windows were installed and the workers are finishing the rest today.

I got so excited, after the first window was installed, that I ran around both sides of my home opening up the new windows, turning on all the ceiling fans and then bravely turning off the air conditioning…

I wanted fresh air circulating in the house. I have lived in this home since 1982 and I have never been able to open one single window…some days I felt like I was in prison…over time the windows had swelled and I physically couldn’t raise one single window and/or close it. They remained dusty, dirty, and the panes had even splintered.

New light came rushing in from the newly installed windows, like a laughing child playing hide and seek. Suddenly corners that had been dark were open to light and I felt like someone who had never seen life before… having her sight restored.

My new windows have made me deliriously happy….in perfect timing with mother nature’s “cooler” weather front moving in for late August. Here are photos taken from the different newly installed windows to date.

Scene looking out my new kitchen window on the B&B side

Another scene from the kitchen window on the B&B side

Another scene from the B&B bedroom window

The bathroom on my side (that will be the next major project somewhere down the road)… even  looks better with its own special window!

And, once again, the real trooper through all these changes has been “Big Red” my famous seven year old geranium…the young men painted my bench for me and now “Big Red” sits upon a freshly painted white bench…the “throne” of the geranium who won’t stop fighting for life…my role model.

“Big Red” lost a few more branches during the two week transfer but I think it  just “slendered up” to withstand the hot summer it has experienced.

While the workers were removing the old windows…I tried to clean around each window sill and keep the blinds or shutters out of the way of the operation… until the vinyl windows were permanently secured.

It reminded me of a story “Mama Mia” (Jackson’s mother who died from brain cancer) told me over the phone one day. She said that she thinks God keeps the shades down on our bedroom windows and over our eyes when we first awaken… so we won’t know what the weather will be…sunny or stormy.

God doesn’t want us going into the day with pre-conceived ideas about the day before it even unveils its glorious, special self. And aren’t we eternally thankful that God spares us the knowledge of the brevity or longevity of our own lives…but instead keeps the shades pulled down so we won’t worry about the future but live life in the moment?

I think the poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, had it right when he stated: ” All the windows of my heart, I open to the day.” Regardless of the conditions of the day…if we enter each day with an open heart our day will be a memorable one.

So until tomorrow (like author Anne Spollen commented from her book The Shape of Water) :

“I discovered windows one afternoon and after that, nothing was the same.” (Ditto Anne)

“Today is my favorite day“  Winnie the Pooh

*Honey and her precious little dog Gabby went on their routine morning walk yesterday and Honey returned with all these wild flowers…how beautiful!