January 18, 2026
With the long weekend fast approaching I made my plans. Get up early Saturday morning, make the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Serenity so I’d have the rest of the day to get a coat of paint on the cabinet boxes. The doors will have to wait for spring since I have a paint gun I’m using on them. The good news is all the doors are primed and ready to go. After a coat of paint on the boxes I would relax as I leisurely write and maybe, just perhaps but no guarantee, work on lesson plans. I would have all day Sunday and most of Monday as well so no need to rush. It was going to be a relaxing and productive weekend.
The drive up became exciting as we (my dogs were going too) reached higher elevations and there was snow on the ground. I love snow and don’t get it where I live. There was also a chance of more snow in the forecast. It was going to be a perfect weekend until it wasn’t.
Truth be told, upon reaching the bottom of the road leading to Serenity I was a little sad to see the new drive to the top of the mountain. Before it was narrow, partly overgrown and tricky to navigate the ditches and holes as you made your way up the mountainside. I had to put my car in four-wheel drive to get there. It made the place look deserted and undesirable to anyone thinking of taking the road. Now it is wide, cleared and freshly graveled. No four-wheel drive required. For me this takes away some of the appeal of the lonely mountain top cabin, but if I come up after dark it will certainly be easier to get there. Either way, once on top the view is still beautiful.
I let the dogs out and unloaded the car. I used Clorox wipes to wipe down all the countertops and anywhere in the cabinets I saw evidence of mice. Yes, we are still battling mice, but we are winning despite our infrequent visits. I put away the groceries and did what any self-respecting person would do on a cold morning in the mountains, I had a cup of hot chocolate. Then I waited for my brother to show up.
Once my brother came, we drove down the mountainside then hiked through the trees, following no path, to the bottom near the brook where we turned the spring pump on to get water to Serenity. It had been turned off a few weeks prior due to work on the driveway. I Had no idea where the spring was, hence my waiting for my brother who does. Once we checked that it was working and wasn’t damaged by the extremely low temperatures they had been having, we returned to Serenity. I went to the water shut off and turned the lever. Water sprayed everywhere as the pipe burst in multiple places.
It was then I heard echoes of laughter, you know, like the ones when I made plans for last summer and God laughed. My plans were shut down as quickly as I shut off the water to Serenity. There was nothing left to do except pack up, drive home and accept that perhaps this was God’s way of telling me to go home and work on my own yard over the long weekend. My front and back yards definitely need work. Maybe it is a way for me to learn to write among the distractions of daily life at my own home so I will be better disciplined for writing during the busy and easily distracting school week. Blessings in disguise as my mother would say.
Blessing or challenge, I accept.
Runes & Rust 