Lighthouse

It's 8:40 p.m. on Memorial Day evening.  The Mr. has already gone to bed after a late night on Sunday visiting with his cousins.  4:30 a.m. will come early for him.  Donny is happily chewing on a steak bone and I've just come inside.  It started out as a cool and sunny morning and proceeded to a cold and rainy day.  I was a little disappointed, I had just a few finishing touches planned for the yard but the weather drove me inside.  
Anyway, I just came back out.  I let the dog out one last time for the evening and decided to take one final look at the progress of the weekend.  I should've taken my camera out for a few rain shots but I was too distracted with appreciating the uninvited rain.  The flower and plants, which always look a little sad immediately after planting, are already perking up.  They remind me of little faces turned up to receive a cool drink.  The dirt that got tracked across walkways and driveway is washed away and the ground has that well soaked and healthy look, do you know what I mean?  The Mr. and I ran to the store earlier this afternoon for a few bags of soil with the hopes that the skies would clear up for a bit and while there, we picked up something that wasn't on the list.  It's a lighthouse.  Yard art I guess?  Supposed to be solar lit but I'm not sure there was enough sunlight today to activate it.  I'm not usually one for statues and the like in the yard, but when I saw it in passing, I went back to look again. And again.  And then I showed it to the Mr. who felt just exactly like I did and into the cart it went.  We had plans to pick up a shrub for the berm to replace the one I transplanted but the lighthouse was "planted" in the spot instead.  So I have been standing on the back porch being very glad that we brought that lighthouse home.  It reminds me of our Michigan vacations Up North, our anniversary trip to Traverse City where we visited lighthouses on the peninsulas.  And of course, it reminds me of that old song...and I thank God for the lighthouse...
I tip toed across the wet driveway and between the raindrops to check out my reading patio and found the rain hadn't blown under the awning there.  So I sat for about ten minutes with my jacket wrapped tight around me and thought to myself, the rain is good.  The only time it isn't good is when it brings the destruction of floods.  Today it came to water the plants that I would have had to water myself.  How silly of me, to want a sunny day that requires paying for water instead of welcoming the gift of rain!  A little late perhaps, but I welcomed it this evening.
Donny was sitting under a tree in a tiny sheltered spot of dry grass watching the rain fall as I sat on my reading patio doing the same.  We headed back inside to wind down our day, with another peek at that sweet lighthouse. 
Now the quiet house is cleaned and straightened, dinner dishes washed and everything in its place.  Tomorrow we go back to work and maybe the sun will be shining, the irony of a day off in the rain not lost on me despite my late found pleasure in it.
I know when I sit on the back porch with my coffee, that lighthouse will be there.  And when we come home, there it still will be.  I hope every time I look at it, I remember that there is a Light in the gray rain that seems to change our plans, but really spills life into thirsty places.

I held on to this post until I could get enough sunshine for a good picture of our lighthouse...it took me a week!