Did I mention it's a roller coaster?

That, my bloggy friends, is an actual unretouched (not that I ever "retouch" any of my pictures; I simply don't know how) photo of a January sunset in our little corner of Oregon.

As I recall, I was driving like a maniac (my favorite way to drive, evidently) to get home in time from the grocery store when I rounded the country corner to the see this. I would love to say it re-centered me and caused me to stop and marvel at the glory of God's creation, but the truth is, I debated whether to pull over to take the picture at all.

Then, later, when I saw it on the screen I was amazed at the way an everyday beauty such as that could become so everyday.

Just yesterday I was at my ob's office, crying over the sale of my horse and committing to find a way to go to the exercise class I gave up last summer due to babysitting difficulties. Can you imagine how, um, interesting it must be to be my obstetrician? One minute I'm waxing rhapsodic about the joys of expecting this baby and the next I've jumped into the subject of feeling not just rural and remote but a little stir-crazy and practically housebound hermitic. (Is that a word?)

This morning Laura had approximately seventeen potty training accidents, two of which involved her sitting on top of the closed potty and "going" while fully clothed. I received about eleven thousand phone calls and for some reason didn't turn off the phone. I cried on a friend's (telephone) shoulder about feeling isolated. I spoke with a former client about his real estate goals and told him I'm expecting my fifth baby and not such a good decision maker at this point, on his behalf or anyone's. Great. On call number three thousand and twelve I spoke with a mom of twins who invited us for a walk and I just about melted down over the thought of scheduling such an event. Then in a separate call I learned about a local family's tragedy that shamed me from feeling sorry for myself. And then my mother offered to watch the girls so I can rejoin the yoga class.

It's a roller coaster. But just for a minute, at the top end, we should try to reflect on a beautiful sunset or other everyday miraculous event. Right?