It’s been over a month since I last wrote a post – a lot has happened, both planned and unplanned.

On the planned side, my husband and I took a trip to Peru for just under two weeks for our first visit to South America. We had a very good time, ate a lot of fantastic food, took in awesome scenery and got to practice some Spanish.

On the unplanned side, my grandmother had a stroke and passed away a week later. Her funeral and burial were held a few weeks ago, and I’ve made one more trip back to TX to help go through her belongings (on what was supposed to be the weekend she got out of rehab for the stroke). My brother put together a very nice video montage that was showed during the funeral proceedings.

While it’s taken me some time to sit down and start writing and sharing again, I have been doing a lot of thinking, reading, and talking. Maybe I’ve built up a stockpile of topics and things to share – we’ll see what comes out of my writing in the next weeks and months.

This week was Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent. I went to a meditation session and Mass earlier in the morning, giving me more dedicated time to think and reflect. Luckily, my church is pretty with it, so there is a video of the homily message delivered by Father David. He tells a story about flying an airplane while getting his pilots license while in college, going over big fluffy clouds, and then at a point looking down and realizing he is not at all where he is supposed to be. Though he was following the course and vector that he figured out was correct, he hadn’t taken in to account the wind, that was steadily pushing him in another direction. I won’t give away the trick to getting the airplane back on course for those who want to watch the video, but the messages I took away from the story were:

• Even when we are exactly following the ‘right’ path, there are things we forgot, or things out of our control, that are moving us down the ‘wrong’ path
• Sometimes it is necessary (and OK) to stop, admit we are off course, and figure out what to do to get ourselves headed back in the right direction
• And though the airplane did need to get back on track to make it to the proper airport, the unintended path may actually be for the better, and it’s up to us to accept that change and not feel like we always have to be in control.

As we are moving in to longer daylight hours, and the general sense of rebirth and new beginnings that happen in the Spring, I’m taking the time to assess where my paths are right-on or somewhat off from what was intended, and then deciding which need to be corrected or which may be better on their unplanned course.