Lana Vaughan

“Do you know the difference between ignorance and apathy?”

“Don’t know and don’t care”.

As I begin writing this the World Population clock says there are 6,951,239,264* people in the world.  Out of those almost 7 billion people 22% have internet access. Out of those 1,529,272,638 people 27%  read English. Bringing my potential readership down to 412, 903,612. Out of that vast pool of possibilities it is estimated that there are currently over 10,000,000 other bloggers writing with fingers crossed that someone will read what they poured out this morning. But even if I deduct them with the excuse that they are busy creating instead of reading I still have over 400 million that I can consider viable reader opportunities.

All this to say, dear reader, this morning you are truly one in millions. Not just a million but 400 million!  You are the rarest of the rare this morning. You have found my blog and read my words. May I never take your time and attention for granted. It is precious to me. Thank you, dear reader.

* In the time it took me to write this and do the math the World Population counter has gone up to….6,951,241,962 making you even more rare!

One of the battles I face is a simple question. “What do you want?” It can be followed by harmless qualifiers like “for dinner” or “to do” or “for your birthday”. Right now it’s followed by a big one that has been growing for about 40 years. “to be when you grow up?”

This morning I am facing that question once again. My youngest child has been away at camp for the past 5 days leaving the house quiet and while my husband is at work my hours free to use as I decide. There are so many options and possibilities. What do I want to do today? And even though it’s only a week I find myself looking a few years down the road and seeing not a week to fill but the rest of my life. What do I want to do when my daughter goes to high school next year and I’m not homeschooling her? What do I want to do when she goes off to college and I my schedule doesn’t revolve around her activities and driving her around? What do I want to do when I “grow up”?

I have some talents, undeveloped and undisciplined. I have some skills, mostly self taught or from the school of hard knocks. I have some interests and am a pretty good learner. What I am lacking is a clear direction. It’s really hard to build up any progress without a destination.

So my goal for today is to take some time with some of the great material and resources I have and start setting some goals for the next year and the next 5 years. Michael Hyatt’s free ebook and an assortment of other material I’ve been looking at will be my starting point.

If you have a suggestion or see a direction you would like to see my journey head I would love to hear from you. Knowing that I have about a dozen readers, most of whom know me personally, I am confident in asking for your insight and opinions.

“People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all… has happened.”

Several of my friends have been going through major changes lately. Some for the better. Some seem like for the worst but we’re believing they are the dark before the dawn of a beautiful new day.

This afternoon I am contemplating change and how oxymoronic it seems that one of the few constants in life is that everyday there is the opportunity for change and the hope of a better tomorrow.

I also think it’s very strange that the money returned after you over pay for something is called change. Taking what’s owed out of a dollar bill and returning a few coins that may rattle around in a pocket until they find their way to a washing machine or an empty coffee can or work their way out through a hole to drop unnoticed to the ground.

The winds change. The times they are a changing. Fashion changes. Technology changes. Women have long established their prerogative to change their minds without rhyme or reason.

I started writing this with the quote at the top feeling like a subtitle for the story of my life but as I’ve been writing another quote from the same movie is the one I want to claim instead.

“You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn’t feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure now. But you’re not. You are marching into the unknown armed with…  Nothing. Have a sandwich.”

For the past 9 years there has been an apple tree outside my home office window. As I type this the tree is gone. In those 9 years there have been maybe a half dozen apples which have been scarfed up by a squirrel I named George. The apple tree by itself would probably still be standing except it’s close neighbor the apricot tree was dying quickly. The apricot tree produced tons of fruit over those same 9 years and the tree men harvested a huge ice chest full for me before taking it out. But the apricot tree was splitting apart at its trunk and before it could cause damage it had to be removed. Also meeting it’s end today is a scrawny redwood tree that is growing into the fence line.

I don’t like to see trees cut down. I love the lessons I have learned from them over the years. I love the majesty, the deep roots and the amazingly uniqueness of each tree.

We didn’t plant these trees. They came with the house and were actually planted by the owners once removed. To those visionaries I say thank you. Thank you for the fruit and the shade and the beauty. To the owners in between I have to say “what were you thinking encasing these trees in cement!? I know pouring concrete to make a dog run seemed like a good idea but you killed the trees!”

Like I said, I have learned a lot of lessons from my trees. Today I am thinking of how stifling regulations and rules and taxes have become in our country and in our churches. As we head into the weekend celebrating our declaration of independence I can’t help feeling like the trees of liberty and the pursuit of happiness have been surrounded with cement to make a dog run.