Winds of Change

The winds outside tonight are blowing strong.  I can't help but sense some change in them once again.  Perhaps blowing out October, moving our warm afternoons further away, blowing in cooler November days and preparing us for an approaching season.

I must say, it is one thing I enjoy the sound of - from a light breeze to a rattling wind.  I love the sound of leaves moving and air flowing.  I love the swirling, and the sweeping chaos, that inevitably ends in a stillness.  I admire trees that stand back up, strong and tall, after being bent past what you thought possible.  It is one of the reasons I have an affinity for trees and their character.  

I am grateful for winds of change, and I have faith the change will be good.  We could all use a little newness.  Welcome November.

Personal Rewards

Tomorrow is Halloween.  It's a day I do not particularly care for.  It's been a life time of built dislike, I doubt anything will ever change that for me.  I do, however, respect the kids' love for it, and do what I can to make it pleasant for them.  And so, today, the children carved pumpkins.  Please note, I did not say "we".

I purchased the pumpkins, I cut the tops.  That's it.  This was a project for the kids. Mwah ha ha... MOM will not clean them.  MOM will not draw faces, MOM will not carve.  MOM WILL NOT CLEAN UP!  Mom will, however, provide a lesson...

I ignored the "how do I?"s, and the "I can't"s.  I presented reminders of who's project this was, and how innovative their brains are.  Turns out, I was right. Three pumpkins were carved, and carved very well.  The kitchen was cleaned without me lifting a hand (mostly).  And, when all was said and done, three pumpkins sat on the front stoop, all with smiling children admiring them fondly, and with pride - because they did it - on their own.  

I am grateful for lessons, holiday projects, and most of all, pride in a job well done.

I am also not so secretly grateful that Halloween only lasts one day, and that it will all be over by 8:00 p.m. tomorrow. I just don't like it!

Busy Days

My Grandfather once said about me "That girl's got two speeds - stop and go."  Perhaps no truer words were spoken about the way I function - Go until I just stop. 

That was true for my Saturday, and so far, my Sunday... I am grateful for busy days, productive and fulfilling.  

And now, I must go again, so at some point I can stop.  

I Will See You Again

I watched the sun come up today, like a fire ball cresting the clouds, and forcing its way higher and higher.  No picture could do it justice.  It became a whisper behind the clouds as it lightened the Earth.  Today is your day.  Today you are free.  No more illness, no more discomfort.  You will no longer feel chill, only warmth.  Today is our day to feel sadness while you feel a whole new love.  Today your soul will be filled with the love of the Lord you worshiped your whole life.  He will open his arms to you, and take you in.  This is your day of glory.

May today be a day of reunion for you.  I hope you will hug all of our loved ones who greeted you today to welcome you into peace.  For 95 years, you have dedicated yourself to your husband, your children, to your grand children, your great and great-great grand children.  Today, we dedicate ourselves to you.   We open our hearts and our memories and smile with love and gratitude for your life and for the part you had in ours.  We weep tears that are bitter sweet, knowing you are safe and warm while we are struggling with the space that lingers where you were. 

Every one of us has stories, and memories.  Everyone will come together to celebrate your life, and what a life it was.  Every one of us will shed a tear.  You read from a great book that tells us this:

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."                    Revelation 21:4 

This is true for us today.  Our order of things, too, has passed away.  Today we must move forward from what was and continue on with what is.   Without you here on Earth, many of us would not have our families that we hold so dear, we would not have each other, and we would not know the value of family that was ingrained to every single one of us.  From you we have learned where we come from, who we are, who we want to be. 

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free!
I follow the plan God laid for me.
I saw His face, I heard His call,
I took His hand and left it all...
I could not stay another day,
To love, to laugh, to work or play;
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
And if my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss...
Ah yes, these things I, too, shall miss.
My life's been full, I've savoured much:
Good times, good friends, a loved-one's touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief—
Don't shorten yours with undue grief.
Be not burdened with tears of sorrow,
Enjoy the sunshine of the morrow.

Grandma, I say to you today, and to all of us that will miss you, “Turn your face towards the sun, and let the shadows fall behind. Be renewed, and feel peace.”

Balance

I stack.  I am a stacker.  Whether it's tasks, or schedules, or relationships, or emotions... I stack.  I am careful with their placement, I am an artist with their forms.  Sometimes the tower tends to wobble, the ground shakes, and every once in a while, it topples and I have to start all over... but there are days, days when it all seems to sit nicely.

 Everything has its place, one depending on the other for structure and strength, for sustainability.  One shift, and it could be nothing, but while it stands...ain't it something?

Equilibrium - Equipoise - Poise - Scale.... I am grateful for Balance.  

Ahhhh Patience Young Grasshopper

It's a new moon today.  I always have less patience on new moons.  My mood sways, I tend to be sharp and over irritated.  My senses seem over loaded and it lasts for days more than it needs to.  New moons are circled on our calendar as duck and cover days.

I find myself practicing a lot of patience today.  It seems no matter what I am doing, I am telling myself to take a breath before reacting.  I am seem to be on a constant path of hurry up and wait, and the Universe, I am sure, is testing my patience.

It's a lesson I taught myself seven years ago, and something I struggle with and practice every day.  Breathe...and react.  Breathe... process...react.  Breathe...count to three...respond.  This is not easy for an Aries.  It's very much like asking the bull in the china shop to tip toe through the fragile section, or shushing a three year old at the circus.  After seven years, I like to think I am becoming well practiced.

I can hear the lego downstairs being rifled through... it sounds like jet engines beside my head right now.  New songs are being tested on an ipod.  The tv downstairs is blaring, competing with the surrounding noise.  I have a lab pacing at my feet, and a cat shaking his collar at the door.  "Seriously?", I sigh out.

And then, right at the end of the rope... I got this link on an email from a very close friend, and it said "it reminded me of you".  I tied a knot at the end of that rope, and just hung on.

(so unbelievably grateful that I live in Alberta)

Sometimes, a reminder is part of the practice.  I am grateful for reminders.  I took a moment, stepped outside under the dark, moonless sky.  The stars were promising moments of light, and there, in front of me, even tangible, I could see my breath.  Patience restored.  Just breathe.

Brilliant Gilbert - Don't Fail Me Now

I don't know how she did it.  It's amazing, really.  Elizabeth Gilbert is brilliant.  She crawled into my mind, spent some time with my soul, and wrote the most amazing book... Eat Pray Love.  It is one of my favorite books of all time.  I have read it cover to cover, start to finish, end to end to beginning again.  I refuse to lend it out, I have page markers, and it's by my night stand.  It's been over a year, 15 months, actually, since I read it the first time, and I am about to read it all over again.  

If you haven't read it, do.  For all the times you picked it up and put it back down, pick it up once again, and read it.  Read it, love it, live it.  I was dared to read it, and was accused of being closed minded at my initial refusal to read it.  I actually said "I don't want to read about another 'Jesus saved me' story".  Me - religiously closed minded? I snarled and shut my mind to someone else's spiritual journey?  Turns out, envy of her journey had gotten the better of me, and pulled out a stubborn streak of refusal.  But then again, I thought, I rarely turn down a dare...  and I so I started to read.

I read... no... I was engrossed in this story.  I read it with tears running down my face, laughing and twisting in emotion.  I have learned so much from my own relation to this woman's feelings, and I yearn for the peace she has found.  I remember reading the first third of the book, sure I had taken a soul flight into her head and written it for her.  Those were my words.  Those were my feelings, my thoughts, my emotions.  How could she know...?  That was me on the bathroom floor.

She found peace in her journey; a peace I still struggle to find.  Thursday will begin Hatha yoga, where I will be reminded to breathe and focus and listen for a moment.  I pray I will find balance, literally (it's yoga afterall, I'm sure you've seen a pose of two and raised an eyebrow), and emotionally.  

I am grateful for the realization of my own emotional imbalance, Elizabeth Gilbert for knowing hers, and for her gift of Eat Pray Love, that lights a path in the dark.  Lis... and Bradshaw, and my soul await....

Oh...and Elizabeth Gilbert introduced me to 'amica stretta' - for the one who brought me Bradshaw. <3

Just Breathe...and Listen

So, I've been thinking... I have spent a better part of my adult life watching what I eat, or working out, or dieting... blah, blah, blah...  Thing is, I may go through the motions, but I really don't pay attention to my body.  My body, for the most part, is healthy - despite an extra couple of pounds and some blown out knees.  But all in all, I am rarely ill, I eat well, and yes, I am ok with enjoying a bowl of ice cream.  I am well... ish, and i figured out recently what the "ish" is.  I often forget to "just breathe", and I stack pain, anger and hurt in different areas and ignore it.  Hmmmmm...

I went for a massage tonight... and remembered to breathe into the pain.  I think it's time to open up to yoga.

I am grateful for the reminder to breathe...breathe through emotion, and listen to my body.  It's time.

Oh, Take a Hike and Walk About It.

I took a hike.  It was warm today, and I headed to the river valley instead of my five miles.  I love hiking,  and I am grateful for it's grounding and clarity.

I ran my hands over the softened seeds of western wheat grass, over grown and unattended,  and as high as my hips.  I pulled at them, making bouquets of seeds and throwing them like confetti.  I stopped here and there, snapping pictures, and breathing away all of the over emotion of yesterday.  It was necessary, and healing, and it made me feel...renewed.

I watched a hawk in a tree today, and it watched me.  It watched me, carefully, studying it, and snapping pictures.  It fanned its wings, almost in slow motion, daring my photo shoot to capture it.

 It whispered, "follow me", caught a breeze, and soared into a blue sky in gentle perfection.

 Peaceful purpose.  

I am sitting here, now, beside a crackling fire, peaceful in my thoughts, and warm from the flames licking at the wood, throwing sparks and dancing like sprites.  I am so grateful for feeling grounded, and also for this nagging feeling that something is calling me.  Until whatever that is becomes a little more clear, I will just enjoy the solace of my afternoon.

Ever Thine, Ever Mine, Ever Ours

Today I learned what everlasting love looks like.  It looks like a white haired man, with eyes of blue oceans, lost in the thought of being alone, without his wife after more than 60 years of love. It looks like rounded shoulders once so strong and square, it looks like fidgeting fingers at the dining room table, and ramblings of "what am I going to do" from the man who always has all the answers.  Today I learned heart ache, and if I ever thought for one second mine was ever broken, I was wrong.  This capacity of love is truly...quieting.  This love makes one hold onto last breaths, and hope, and faith, and hand holding, and the gentle kisses.

I cried today, for my grandfather's breaking heart, and for having to decide to let go of the love of his life.  I cried for his unselfish act of letting her find the peace she needs despite his need for her.  I have gratitude for knowing there is a love that lasts beyond what time allows.

The rest of what I had to write today, just doesn't seem to matter.

The Voice In My Head Made Me Eat It.

Simplicity...keep it simple, tomorrow is going to be a tough day.  I am looking forward to a drive - alone - both ways.  I have a lot to think about, and I am looking forward to tomorrow's blog already - it just needs a little more thought before I can offer it up.

Today, I am grateful for my gram's voice in my head that is making me go, and for the strength she gave me to do it.  I am grateful for her whisper, and for reminding me I am a grown up.

...and I am grateful for my vanilla ice cream with three smashed Oreos in it, because I don't have to be a grown up until tomorrow.

Grandma's Goulash

My mom used to cook a simple meal for us, she called it goulash.  I'm pretty sure my mother learned it from my Grandma, and I learned it from my mother.  It was a favorite of mine growing up, and it's a favorite of my children's now.

 It's a 20 minute meal.  Seasoned browned hamburger, shake in some worsteshire and soya sauce, add a can of mushroom soup and one equal can of water, throw in some rice, mix and simmer.  Even more delicious, throw it in a caserole dish, top with chow mein noodles, and bake for half an hour at 350 degrees.  It stirs my memory, and fills my belly, and ohhhhhhh I love it.  

That's four generations now, as I have taught my kids how to make it, that know how to chef up a simple, delicious family meal.  It brings to mind a little ditty I wrote up recently... I Cook For Them.

I am grateful for my love to cook, and for the generations that taught me, and for those I teach.  

I Cook For Them

Not many people understand my love for cooking, and perhaps, I didn’t understand it fully until just recently.  I love to spend time in the kitchen cooking. I love making new food, old recipes, comfort food, gathering food, I love it all.  I love it when I can take the time, and love the science and the art of it.  I love the story food tells, and the sociality that can from it all.  I love that food can bring a family to the table, and that conversations can take place over it, with it, because of it.

 But of all of that, today, in my cooking, I came to the realization of something quite startling.  I caught a glimpse of myself, reflected in the glass pane of a cupboard door, and stopped at what I saw.  Standing there, knife in hand, comfortable, and deep in thought... I looked just like them. 

Memories of my childhood are filled with dinners, gatherings, and food.  There was rarely a night where supper wasn’t eaten at the family table, rarely was it ever eaten before my father was home.  It may have been as simple as hot dogs and Kraft Dinner, but the meal was eaten as a family.  My favourite conversations were held at that table, some of my worst and best moments experienced.  Plenty of laughter was heard over breaded pork chops, while choking back tears, eating after being punished, spaghetti rolled on a fork, just like grandpa taught us.  My mother and father built their family around the food in our house, and thank goodness for it.  Our meals built our schedules, our temperaments, and our time.  And that time is something I wouldn’t give up for the world.

My momma’s cooking is something that brings me home when I have gone too far away.  I may have only been five minutes down the street, or miles down the highway, but when I drifted too far, she always knew how to bring me back to where I needed to be.  Roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes.  Spaghetti, pork chops, home made bread.  She is where my home is, and home is ever where her heart is, in myself, and the path there is as easy as a memory. 

My mother was taught well, with roots in cooking like those of a solid oak tree.  They twist and turn, and reach miles and miles, all reaching up towards the heavens, branching off, leaving seeds, nourishing life and leaving it’s mark.  I can count the number of memories of my grandmothers that aren’t in the kitchen.   I am as sure as the sun rises, that an apron was part of both of grandmother’s wardrobes, a staple in their uniform, a knife their tool of choice.  And here I stand, a woman of generational gift, staring back from the glass in front of me.  I am them.  They were who I am, and it’s startling. 

I can hear the laughter around my grandmother’s table, stories pouring like gravy over Yorkshire pudding.  I can see love in the food, and love in the family.  I remember the flavour of her food.  I remember thinking how talented she was to be able to cut a round cake into square pieces. Small things, such joy in a memory.   I recall my grandmother making juice with her own apples, grown in the front yard, sweating herself into juice she knew we loved.  Even today, on hot day, when I drink the juice she taught me to make, it makes me cry with her memory. 

They are such a part of me, and I am so blessed to have them in my blood.  My mother, my grandmothers, their mothers that taught them that run through my veins today...I am them.  I cook with them, I cook for them, I cook because of them.  Food is for my family, part of me I give to them in every meal.  Food is for my friends who make me whole, and fill parts of my soul with their smiles.  Food is for my dad, who proudly eats and brags for days.  I cook for my children, with unrefined pallets, and screnched up faces at new flavours.  They will thank me one day...when they are cooking.  I cook for my husband and hope he knows how centered I am when I do, and how much the silent praise of an empty plate, or maybe two touches my heart.  I don’t just cook well, I cook like home – where they are, and that makes my cooking better than that of all the gourmet cooks in the world.  Ask my family- they’ll tell you it’s true, and that’s all that matters. 

I remember once searching for who I am... the answer is – I am one of them. 

 They taught my momma

 And my momma taught me

 And this momma taught her little chefs

Letters From The Other Side

I have thinking a lot about death lately.  Not so much the act of dying, but the aftermath.  Perhaps it's all the people I see around me, leaving the Earth at an early time, or even in experiencing life after the "unsaid".  And, no, I, myself, am not ill, and I certainly have no plans on leaving this Earth anytime before my ninety or hundred something birthday. Don't panic people!  But, beyond my control, I often wonder, if I were gone tomorrow, would I have said all the things I needed to say?  As I type this, I can hear the words of "If Tomorrow Never Comes" and I actually giggled.

I have been thinking for a while now, probably too long of a time to have let it fall to the wayside, that I have things that I want people to know.  I have things to say, and things I need to make sure people know when I no longer occupy space on Earth.  I have letters to write, the kind of letters that make you hide away for a weekend with no distractions just to write them.

When I was in junior high, our teacher handed out homework for our parents.  They were asked to write us a letter about our birth, and our childhood, and words of wisdom for us.  I would have never imagined the impact that one letter would have on my life.  I read it then, and cried.  I read it often for years afterwards, and I cried.  I read it today, and I cry.  I don't know that I understood the extent of my mother's love until I read that letter.  I want the same for my children.  I have promised myself to sit down and write a letter to them, so they can understand the capacity of my love for them.

I have a long list of letters... my children, my parents, my husband, some close friends, and even my former husband.  My question, I guess, is - does one wait to have the letters distributed until it's too late for the things that have been said to be said? Does one actually take a risk of the crack that may open up in a wall, or even more dangerous, her heart, to actually distribute them now... that's a lot of fear for me.  A fear, I think, I have to conquer.  I don't want it to be too late - ever.

The more I think about it, perhaps that what has me so unbalanced, unable to focus, and feeling so jarred up with my emotions.  I have things to say... and when I am gone, maybe someone will say, "I am grateful she never left things unsaid".

Sometimes

(click here, let it play while you read, trust me, I'm building a theme here! Make sure you open in a new tab)  

This Time - Jonathan Rhys Meyers

I woke up today out of sorts.  I feel... heavy.  I have been saying this for a while, but I have been feeling like something just doesn't fit - something's not right.  I came across a picture today that a friend of mine had posted on her facebook page - and it brought tears to my eyes.  Because just sometimes...

I am not saying that I am sad today, I am just saying that I am unbalanced, and out of sorts, and sometimes... well... 

I have also been blessed today with knowing, that maybe, in some small way, I helped someone up when they stumbled, and I didn't even try.  Sometimes, when we make kindness a way of life, we are blessed with moments that touch our hearts and make us better people.  Today I am grateful for kindness, and I promise to remind myself of it's importance more often.  

For those of you that can look me in the eyes and know when I am not ok, and for those who let it be not ok sometimes, I am grateful for you too.  Thank you for just understanding, and knowing that the fix will find itself...eventually.  And in that "fix", I will learn, and move forward.  I hope kindness in my days can offer you the same.  

Kindness...who knew?   Funny thing is... we all do, why don't more people use it? 

The Rushing In My Ears

So, this recent flu has left me with spidey senses.  Everything is too loud, everything is too bright, and everything moves too fast.  It seems like this world of chaos swirling around me, just thinking about it makes me anxious.  Sometimes life is just too loud. My head feels too heavy for my shoulders, and it's affecting my patience...

Tonight, I will be grateful for bed time.  A time when the house goes quiet, and the lights gets dim, and the talking just shhhhhhhhhhhhushes..  I will take some time for myself, and I will just sit for a while and breathe.  I will watch my lab sleep, I will watch the neighborhood settle.  I will have a hot shower, and wash away my day, crawl into bed and lay there and listen to the silence.

In the silence I start to hear.  I hear moments.  I hear "I love you mom"s and I hear laughter of friends.  I hear the first time my husband told me he loved me, with the thunder and lightening crashing around us.  I hear waterfalls.

I remember standing on the bridge at Athabasca falls, the spray in my face.  The sound was so loud; it rushed into my ears, and into my soul.  That fall in front of me, filled my every sense, and filled my soul for a moment.  It moved me, and it made me silent.  When it's quiet, I can hear it in my soul.

For every action, there is an equal reaction, and this loud rushing in my ears will bring me silence. It will be own ironic peace.

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens... Brown paper packages tied up in string...      These are some favorite things, but their not mine...

One more time ...   Popcorn and Pepsi, and chocolate in coffee, goose down duvets and soft gooey toffee... Laughter in movies, and time on my own, I love to send emails, not talk on the phone..
My children, their laughter it pulls at my heart strings, we dance in the kitchen, we jump off the park swings. We watch when there's thunder and shout ooohhhss and aaahhssss, and when it's too cold out, we drink cocoa through straws.  When the frost bites, when the geese fly, when our heart won't sing, I have tea with miss Bradshaw, and watch Rosie O, and find smiles in my few simple things.....

For all the above, and my ability to rhyme, and for knowing not all things must be profound, I am grateful.

P.s... I really do love whiskers on kittens. Who doesn't?

Tea With Carrie Bradshaw

So, here I am, curled up in my chair, having a cup of tea. But this cup of tea...this cup is different.  Every time I see this cup, I smile.  It's sparkly, and red, and the rim on the inside is filled with all things Big Apple.   It's my own little piece of New York, Bradshaw style.

The mug, yes, is actually from New York.  The memory of the vicarious trip via text with one of my very best friends, Tanya, will reside in that cup.  She went recently, for ten days, and I promise you, she will go back, with me... perhaps on our way to Italy.  She visited places like Central Park, and Ground Zero, and had pizza in Grenwich Village.  I was dying of envy, and also of laughter every time she would text me with a story of where she was.  My love for New York and Carrie Bradshaw pale in comparison to the love I have for my friend.

For anyone that is a fan of Sex in the City, you know Carrie Bradshaw.  She writes, she speaks her mind, she has great shoes, she has Big, and above all else, she would stop the world for her girlfriends.  I relate to her, I adore her.  So tonight, I sit and write, with a hundred things on my mind.  I have my sparkly mug by my side... I shall call it Bradshaw.  I am having tea with Bradshaw.  I am one lucky girl.

I am grateful for Bradshaw, and more than ever, I am grateful for my beautiful friend Tanya, who brought a little piece of her travels home to share with me.

She said the pizza she had in the Village was the best she'd ever had.  My response? "One day, when we are sitting at a little table, outside a pizza place in a village in Italy, you will say, I thought the Pizza in Grenwich Village was the best pizza I had ever had... until today"  I can't wait for "today".

Saturday Flu....so unfair.

Let me tell you a secret... when I am sick, and it doesn't happen often...I am a huge baby.  It's been five years since I have had the stomach flu.  Five years vomit free wasn't quite long enough for me.  Cold sweats, fever, extreme dizzy spells, and yes... vomit. Too much information - I know.

Having the flu makes you very grateful for little things; warm sweaters, comfy couches, warm air blowing from the heater vents, a soft bathmat on the bathroom floor to curl up on when you think death would be more fun, and good toothpaste.

I appreciate my daughter's sweetness of checking me, my son's sympathy, my husband who won't let me get off the couch, and the power button on the tv when all it will play is food commercials... Blech...

oh... and I pass on a picture today. No one needs to associate anything with vomit...ever.

Squeals Like a Girl

There's a sleep over going on here.  Soon, there will be 13 Going on 30 playing in the living room, chips and pop, and too many words such as "like", "ummm", and "totally" being used to separate what are potentially full sentences.  There is dress up, there is music, there is laughter and giggles, and yes, even girl squeals.  My god, I love it.  Tonight I am grateful for things that make us squeal like girls.

Today, even I got to have a moment that made me squeal.  I was insanely surprised today by a beautiful friend, and member of my heart family.  It's been soooo, sooo long since we've got to hug, and chatter, and just be in each other's space.  And today...there she was, surprising me, in my town, in my office... and yep... I squealed like a girl... Oh Kerry I miss you!

Oh I am so grateful for moments that make us squeal like a girl.

Home is where my heart is

I was gone, just one night, and two days, and still, at the end of the day...soooo ready to be headed home.

Home is the noise, and the quiet. Home is the organized chaos.  Home is the kitchen where I cook, and the chair I sit in to watch out the window.  It's the hot shower where I think the best, my grape shampoo, my Rocky Mountain Soap Company Avalanche soap and a warm towel.

My home, where there is children, and a husband, and dogs and cats and a rabbit - oh my -it is where my heart lives.  It's in their smiles and in their hugs, and their kisses and stories.  All these things fill my heart with such joy, and this is my home.  And I am so grateful to be home.

 

Go ahead....let go.

I was laying in a steam room, far less steamy than I would have liked, waiting for it to pppppppssssshhhhhhhhhttttt and fill with steam.  I waited. And waited.  Stared at the wall, and waited.  The room was warm enough for moisture, just no steam.  I stared up at the ceiling, quiet and somewhat irritated.  ...Just breathe... It's my mantra for patience.  

The ceiling was filled with droplets of water, like constellations drawing out water pictures on the tiles.  They were filling with water, growing fuller and fuller, clinging to the world that, for all intents and purposes, has held them tight and close.  I stared, forgetting about the need for the room to fill.  I was preoccupied with something else - my own silent encouragement of the droplets to let go.  They would have to let go sooner or later, they were just so full - clinging to the cold, heavy and strained.  Let go...just fall.  I held out my hand.  Drrrrrrippppslish.  See, I caught it.  Another one fell beside me and hit the floor.  I expected it to just run or puddle on the floor, but the Earth it fell to had become so warm in my wait, that it just ppppppssssssshhhhhhttttt...steamed up in evaporated glory, and began it's rise back up.  And that's what happened when no was there to catch it.

Sometimes, the hardest part is the fear, and the letting go.  But the fall, the fall is just letting the wind rush through you before you come back to the Earth.  Sometimes there is someone to catch you when you fall, and sometimes there isn't - but there is always the point of rising and getting back up.  

I am grateful for every time I got back up, and for my own evaporated glory.  Ppppppssssssssshhhhhhttttttttt.

Oooooooooolea

Once in an old book, a long time ago, someone sat down and penciled one of my very favorite stories.

"And he said unto me: This is Shinehah, which is the sun.  And he said unto me: Kokob which is star.  And he said unto me: Olea, which is the moon.  And he said unto me: Kokaubeam, which signifies stars, or all the great lights, which are in the firmament of heaven. " 

-Abraham 13-

This was the naming of the sun, and the stars, and of course, a piece of my heart, Olea, the moon.  I think of this story every full moon, and I am ever grateful for her.  

Up in the sky, among the granules of the universe, she sits, quiet and powerful.  She pulls at the tides like the blankets of her child.  She lights the skies, different areas of her Earth in equal turns.  Moon beams cast spells on those who dance in them, and no matter what, even when you think she's gone, she's still there, listening, whenever you need her.  

I walked in her light tonight, and stopped for a few seconds to bask in the untouchable beauty, remembering a moment that still wells tears in my eyes.  I didn't know just how much I loved the moon until my daughter turned to me one day, under a full moon, and said, as a matter of fact, nodding towards the moon, "she sure is a beautiful girl, isn't she, momma?"  "yes, baby girl," I choked out, "she sure is".  

And as I take some time tonight, in the over emotional state that welcomes a full moon, I think my precious Olea sounds much like someone I miss terribly.  

Tonight, and every night, I am grateful for the moon.  

Mmmmmm Red Velvet

Ingredients

1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

2 tablespoons cocoa

4 tablespoons red food coloring

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1 cup white sugar

1 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract  

  These are the ingredients to what may very well be the most popular dessert in my house.  It takes patience, meticulous preparation, and time.  It is the most temperamental dessert I have ever made.  

   Three bowls, measuring tools, a whisk, a spatula, a spoon, the mix master, a  pot, spring form pan, a muffin tin, and a cake plate.   It's enough to ensure a sink full of dishes.  A half hour of mixing, an hour or two of waiting, and fifteen minutes of building.  The secret is in the method...and the time...and the patience.  And the reward is in the smile and "ohhhh my God, soooooooo gooooooooooood"... 

   I'm not sure, really, what I am more grateful for... my love of cooking, my love of Red Velvet cake, or my family's love for my Red Velvet cake.  I know for sure I am grateful for "ohhhh my God, soooooooo gooooooooooood"...