This Last Weekend

Okay, okay, so while I may not have been "honkey-tonky-ing it" (totally not a word, I know) in Texas this past weekend, I did have a few adventures of my own. I took a long weekend (off of work on Monday) and headed up to Long Lake, WI. For those of you who have NO clue, it's about twenty minutes south of the Michigan State line. VERY North of Milwaukee. VERY North.
So I packed up on Friday night, headed up there around 5:30, and had about a four and a half hour ride ahead of me. So what's a girl to do for 5-ish hours in a car by herself in the dark? Well... pray! I popped in some worship music, and sang, sang, sang, and talked with God for a good long time. Did you ever talk to God and just know that He really heard you? As if you are one hundred percent sure that what you had said really made it "all the way up to heaven"? Well, that's the place I was in that night. You know, it's amazing what God has to say to us when we really open ourselves up and listen. He wants to tell us so many things, and in our busy lives, we tend to shut Him out for the sake of saving time... or because we just simply forget:

"This house is echoing

with the sound of you knocking at the door.

But with three locks And the shades down

You are easy to ignore

I put You on like an old pair of shoes

I've put You off,

But now I need You"

- Bethany Dillon

Love that girl, can you tell? Well, I just think that this particular piece of her song, "Why" says it all. We tend to shut ourselves in from God, making it all too easy to look the other way... to try and do it all on our own. And it's a daily battle; we have to die to our flesh daily and put our own desires aside in order to let God get in there and really work in our hearts and lives. The bottom line in this portion of my weekend recap is this: I had all the time in the world to talk with God, and let me tell you: we talked. And it was awesome. 'Nough said. I'll get down off my soapbox now :)

Alright. So, I get all the way up to "Nowheresville USA", and find that I have to get out of the car in the middle of the north woods at ten o'clock at night to shut the stupid gates that guard the property on which our family's cabin resides. S-C-A-R-Y!! Well, suffice it to say, I survived (even though we later discover that there's a family of blackbears living in a den not too far from our cabin), and made my journey one and a half miles back into the woods to the cabin.

Saturday morning, I wake up, and I. AM. DEAD. SOOOOO sick. Who gets sick on vacation?!?! Boo. Well, if I cared enough about the fact that my body "just didn't wanna" anymore, I would have kept my butt on the couch and nursed my illness. But noooooo! I went out shopping with mom in the little rinky-dink towns in the area, four-wheeled all around the woods near our cabin and "explored the wilderness" (I'm an outdoorsy kind of gal, what can I say?), and generally just wore myself out. So, when the evenings approached, I layed on the couch and watch movies all night. (Gotta love electricity in the middle of the woods. Just like home!)

Mom, having a combination of the cooking skills of my grandmother and Emeril, made two awesome dinners, and an outstanding breakfast, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I saw a slew of deer, and other random wildlife; I think I failed to mention that the cabin is set atop a cliff over-looking the beautiful Wolf River - gorgeous view between the river and the fall colors... just breathtaking. I have some pictures on mom's camera (who is still up there enjoying the wilderness), so I'll be sure to post those when she gets back in town.

Aside from the fact that I was feeling less than stellar, it was a great weekend. I caught up on my movies, got a little studying done, fufilled my need for speed on the four-wheeler, and learned a bit more about the kind of respect I should be having for the great outdoors (I think I failed also to mention that while hunting on Sunday, my dad came across a four hundred pound black bear and her two cubs. Talk about respecting the great outdoors. Sheesh!). All in all, it was beautiful, relaxing, and totally worth the five hour drive. Pics to come!