The mark we leave behind

This is yet another one of those life lessons that I'm learning from my dog (these may turn into a book someday!)...

Last night I was out walking my dogs and was taking note of the difference between their walking styles. Olive is out for the hunt. She is looking for small animals upon which she can prey - birds, rabbits, squirrels - you name it, she's out to get it. Olive wants to chase down every rabbit that crosses her path. She misses a lot of the "little things" that my other dog notices. Scooter, on the other hand, is looking for scents. He stops at every mailbox, light pole, and grassy corner that we pass (which makes for a stop and go walk, but that's a whole other topic). Often times, he leaves his "mark" there as well, but from time to time, he just wants to sniff to see who was there before him.

So that got me to thinking last night about what we leave behind. Do the people who come behind me, see that I've left things in good order? Do they see that I made friends with the people around me? Did I leave a fragrant scent when I left because I got along with everyone (or at least tried to), or did I smell up the place with a bad attitude? What kind of mark have I left on the places I've gone? I even mean places like the grocery store. I hope that every time I interact with people, they get a whiff of Jesus through a good attitude after waiting in a really long line or that they get a taste of gentleness when things don't go my way and I have to choose to react with kindness rather than anger.

What kind of mark have you made? And what kind of mark do you want to make going forward?

Grand Finale

Here I go with another one of my late night musings...Sunday night, Ed and I went to see fireworks with his brother and his family and their back yard neighbor. It's been a yearly tradition for 4 years (at least for me). Well, the thing I've noticed is that everyone seems to look forward to the grand finale more than anything else. My niece kept asking if it was grand finale yet. Well, it's quite obvious when the grand finale starts because all the fireworks blend together and then are mixed in with tons of smoke. I feel that the amount of fireworks released during the grand finale is the equivalent of the rest of the show. So you see, I feel that the grand finale is a waste of fireworks. Yes, I did say a WASTE of fireworks. I want to see each firework individually...and not all clumped together. At least in the rest of the show, the smoke has time to clear. Now, don't get me wrong, I love fireworks, but I want them one at a time and not all released one right after the other! Happy 4th of July (one day late)!

P.S. When I get my home computer back, I will load all the pics I took that evening and get one posted on here (sometimes I get one or two pics that actually come in clearly).