Well that got my Attention! or, Unexpected Stings and Sightings...

This afternoon, after spending two hours with the young lady who is heavily considering being my assistant in the kid's ministry I left church excited and blessed, especially since a week ago I did not have anyone in place. 

I decided to celebrate with an iced coffee from McDonalds.

The code of my mobile order: WS37

Out of all the combinations of letters and numbers out there it had to be this?

Bill's initials and the number of years we were married?

Not today Satan.

I will celebrate that man and those years.

I drank my coffee on the back porch, basking in this beautiful weather day.

Afterward I decided to water my Dahlias and tie them to supports. 

They are so large they are bending over. 

And what did God open my eyes to see? 

A baby walking stick looking at me.

 Can you find it?

Next stop: the fence line. 

The rose bush needed pruned and a pine branch did too. 

I also wanted to pull all of the vine that was growing wild where it shouldn't be. 

That may not be the right tool for the branch, but it was accessible and it got 'er done.

When I got further down the fence, at the last section of vine that needed pulled up, my eyes were opened once again to an unusual gift. 

A monarch butterfly caterpillar! 

And not one, but two! 

Those vines are staying right where they are. 

The original photo I took was on Google lens and it said the larva was feeding on milkweed. That is not milkweed so I went back to the fence to snap a picture with my phone's camera.

I leaned my arm on the fence to steady my hands so my picture would not be blurred.

It ended up a little blurry anyway because as I leaned and snapped, in quick succession, my brain registered pain and I quickly moved my arm and wondered why the aphid looking things had bit me! They never have before.

A closer look proved the little orangish bugs were innocent. 

The culprit was a red wasp.

Lessons today?

Stings happen.

Out of the blue.

Unexpectedly.

So do blessings.

I can choose to focus on the temporary pain caused by the code and the wasp

or I can remember the surprise insects I got to see today.

I'm choosing sweet memories, not bitter ones.

(I will be carrying a reminder of that last encounter for a few days so I need to come up with a better story than "I wasn't paying attention and stuck my arm on a red wasp" in case any of the medical personnel ask what happened on Wednesday before my back surgery.)