Nothing Significant

Nothing significant happened today.

After a night of listening to the storm, that rumbled right into the late morning hours, I slept in.  

I laid, listening, letting the breeze blow through the curtain, caressing me to get up.


And so I did.  I got up only to lay on the couch.  I even had a nap. 


I made some good food, watched a good movie.

Nothing significant.  And it's exactly the day I needed.

And if the clouds rumble tonight, and sing me to sleep, I'll be grateful for that too.

Foot Prints On My Heart

Even the tiniest feet will walk the paths less traveled by...

...and grow in gratitude, grace, and fierce strength. 

Miracle Treat Day

I have had a fairly crappy day.

But it's Miracle Treat Day at DQ, and I couldn't think of a better excuse to eat ice cream.

For it's purpose, and for ice cream after a day that outlasted my patience... 

I am grateful. 

The Wounds

"The wound is the place where light enters you".

I've been tossing around this quote all morning, trying to decide whether or not I agree. It's had me examining some of my "wounds".  At a quick glance, without in-depth thought, I disagreed.  "My wounds are a place of resentment", I thought.   My wounds changed me.

(*enter in-depth thought, for which I am eternally grateful).


My wounds changed me. 










My wounds taught me.








And in that thought, I saw the light that filled my wounds.

My wounds left scars.  My scars tell stories.

I am a lighted warrior.

Grateful.

Sharing Doesn't Come Easy

I decided to make some tater tots to share with my girlie tonight...

I tried to take a picture...

...but it was too late.  Clearly.   She offered to help... what a charmer.

Grateful (?) she ate as many as she did, and spared me from tater-tot guilt.  It's a real thing.  I swear. 

To Beach Their Own

For beach days...

and sandcastles...

For running and laughter... (and no X-Box!)

Sail On...

With Gratitude.

Sell Your Heart

The thing about this blog is that it is an excellent outlet for a lot of things I need to say, but have no other place to get them out.  I use it when I am angry, I use it when I am elated.  I write here.

I have noticed, over time, knowing who some of my readers are, I have reserved plenty of what I need to put out there, keeping it internalized.  I am careful as to what I put out there.  I have, a couple of times, asked "if you don't like what you read, don't read it, for this is my place for my thoughts", but I find I don't follow my own rules.  I have several drafts of things written that are sitting, knowing what might come of it all if I ever actually hit the "publish" button.  I have become careful in my writing.

I recall mentioning it recently, and had a comment of "somethings are best left unsaid".  Are they?  Should it be acceptable for me to halt my words, cautioning against bringing about someone else's feelings?  What if someone else needs to hear what I have to say?  What if they have been waiting for it?  And even if they haven't, isn't it my own right to own my feelings, and my decision to voice them?

In a non-coincidence (as my dear friend Shelly knows all about) yesterday, I skimmed across some reading, and this article popped out.  Again the sonorous words before my eyes, screaming to me to own my feelings and stop running from them.  It is a letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to a young author, Francis Turnbull, after reading her writing.

He says to her in this letter,  "You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell."

This is the basis of all my writer's block, and (enter "ah ha!" moment here) personal emotional struggles.  I've got to sell my heart...  That's a very hard thing to do when you keep it locked up, internalizing the voice of all feelings as to not "rock the boat" or hurt someone else's feelings. 

I ate up this article like it was a favorite meal.  I re-read this paragraph over and over, letting the seventy four year old words resonate through me.  "You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions..."  

Not everything is best left unsaid.  I have only my emotions... 

"You wouldn't be interested in a soldier 

who was only a little brave."

Thank you, F. Scott Fitzgerald.  

With Gratitude.

Simplicity's Second Post

This..

This is a door that latches... properly.

This is a door that I fixed.

This is a door no chocolate lab can break through.

And I am grateful.

Also, I am a little bit kick-ass.

Just sayin'.

Simple Love

Last night my plans were ruined; and frankly, I was incredibly miffed about it.  I was out in the garage, sweeping and troubleshooting a treadmill that refused to work. While I was busy being mechanical, unbeknownst to me, my lab pushed open the front door, and escaped like a mad man running from Alcatraz.

I spent my evening, or an hour and a half of it, looking for my dog.  I walked... and walked... and drove, and drove.  I may have also cursed once or twice...maybe.

The good news is, I found my simple dog, lolly-gagging along a road I had driven a hundred times already, completely oblivious as to what could possibly be the matter with his choice of independent walk.  I am grateful I found him, more grateful that I found him before animal control did.

His simplicity astounds me daily.  But seriously, his love astounds me more.

And last night... I needed the simplicity of that kind of unconditional love. Shouldn't we all be so lucky as to have that kind of love?

One Word Wednesday

Glory

A Little Bit Dark

There's a grey cloud over my house today.  And I don't mean the ones literally in the sky.  There are three more days to this month's impending black moon and it's wreaking havoc on my household.  Damn you black moon (I am grateful to have someplace to lay the blame.)

My head feels like it got drunk and went to the amusement park without the rest of my body.  The swirling, and the anxiety, and everything being too loud with people pushing and shoving their way through the trenches of my mind; the lights meshing together to blind me from simplicity.  I just want it all to stop.  I am starting to wonder if I am ever going to see simplicity again.  It seems so far from every day reality.

I am stepping back from my own situations, and taking a good long look for solutions.  I am ready for a solution to fall in my lap, but that never seems to happen.  There is apparently not ever any learning in it.  I would be grateful for it, that's for sure - for someone to give me the answers, for someone to point out where I should be, or if this is the right place for me.

Why is that life is always getting in the way of the way I want to live my life?  Am I getting in my own way?  I feel like I have been on the path of soul searching long enough, and time to find a way to live simply.

Anyone else feeling the black moon pull?

Missing You On Your Birthday

A summer night

Wrapped up in a special blanket

On a special birthday

After a busy, productive day

And it's quiet

Grateful

...

...

Gratitude, some days, comes so easily... and some days, you wonder just why things are the way they are.

Missing you Gram...and not grateful for the longing.

One Word Wednesday

Journey

Tumultuous Skies

Tumultuous clouds sit high in the sky tonight.  I will be grateful if the sky opens up and drenches us with some water to cool off the evening.  Also, I didn't water my flowers...drat.

Wash away the dust...freshen the day for a clean start tomorrow... come on now, you know you want to...

Pitchy Fan Songs On Summer Nights

I just took a minute to water my flowers out front, quenching their thirst from the day of heat. There was a little frog in my garden, nestled in the cool dirt. Smart little fella. I moved out back to the table, a night time post, out on the deck. This is a first for me, and I will will probably be covered in bites by the time I go in.

I've been carrying around a lot on my mind again. It's rewarded me with a headache the size of Montana. I have all these "unfinished letters" swimming around up there. Words that need to come out, questions to be answered, and closure to be found. I keep trying to go back to the letters, to give the attention they need, but the heat of this evening has dragged me back in a memory instead.

Too hot to sleep, no energy to move, but lingering in the peace of the cooling of the evening settling across the landscape. I remember nights like this as a teenager, in Grandma's tiny house, sweltering in heat. There was a fan on Grandma's floor, or sometimes the chair by the window, that we would sit in front of as kids, and talk into it, laughing at our voices pitching with the spinning blades.

We'd flick the blue buttons, speeding it up, and slowing it down until Grandpa hollered at us to leave it alone. We never left it alone...

And as the fan blows across my own room tonight, my memory shifted to our summer nights. We'd sit for a spell, out on the front deck until darkness fell, and move into the kitchen for a cup of rice crispies. I miss my Gram tonight. I miss what she'd tell me if I asked her my questions. I miss the conversation that would twist in twenty different directions, never knowing what came next, or from where, and I miss what I would learn when I looked back on it.

I am very lonely for her on summer nights like this, and I have extreme gratitude that I was afforded the time and memories I had with her. I think I'll go have my conversation with her, I know she still listens.

Homemade Breeze

It's overly warm... I will admit it - without complaining.

It is twenty seven degrees in my house... twenty seven degrees of thick, hot, non moving air.

Tonight I am grateful for the breeze that is blowing on me as I sit here typing...

Homemade Breeze...straight from the fan.

Excellent.

A Place By A River

We took a drive today and came across this beautiful spot.

The river ran slow enough here to play in the water.

And abundant enough to try our hands at little bit of fishing.

... and the fishing turned into a mud flight...

... and the fire was warm enough to take the chill off after the rinse...

...which led to dinner over a fire...

...and the drive home - led to three sleeping children in the back seat.

Today was... near perfect.  And I am so grateful. 

We will return again.  I can't wait.

Hope Chest

It's covered in an intricately stitched love.  Roses touch the corners, lace trims the edges.  It's a mother's love, her fathers strength, and a box of Hope.  


There's a year book in there, with good-byes, and ambitions, and dreams.  It's from a time when we all knew who we wanted to be, and direction was whichever way we were facing.  The world was at our feet, the possibilities were endless.  It was the last of our cliques, it was the last time we would be kids.  There's a yearbook in there that was the beginning of adulthood. 

Wrapped around that book, and an album of "I do"s (that turned into "I don't"s) is a blanket, lovingly knitted for me by my great grandmother.  It swaddled me as a baby, and now swaddles broken dreams.  It holds them tight when I can do longer do the same. 


It's filled with sweet baby clothes and dreams that flourished.  It holds first words and first shoes, years of Mother's Day gifts, each one stained in tears.  There's the tiger that protected the NICU bassinette, and the silky edged white blanket, tattered with love.  


I stumbled upon it, really. It was lifelessly laying there, hugging the old hinges of my hope chest. I could barely touch it, I was stunned it was there, out of the "safe zone" of a little boys arms. The small blue elephant with a blanket body still smelled of him, its eyes scored, its patches patched over and over... I called to him, and questioned how the precious token of childhood made it's way to my room.  "I think it's time you put it away. I don't really need it anymore, and I know it goes in there, with all of your special things." 

It's a place where "special things" get put away, and Hope fills an empty space. Letters and cards, books and pictures.  Lost ones, and loved ones.   It holds not just memories, but moments - frozen in time.  I am grateful for the time and the love that fills my Hope Chest.  

Soft Summer Night

It's Friday night.  Finally a night without rain.  There's a camp-out in the back yard just outside my window.  I can hear the sibling whispers, and see the glow of flash lights.  

The yard work is already done, nothing will be beckoning my attention tomorrow with exception of time with my family.  A day for all of us, and for that I am grateful. 

I am in love with summer.  I am grateful for warm nights, for whispers, for dancing light, and for breathing deep. I can hear the frogs and crickets, and the yips of dogs.  As the sun goes down the coyotes will quiet the dogs...and I have bets on kids sneaking out of the tent and back into their beds.  (I am grateful for the lack of reasonable thinking at 3 a.m.).   

Wishing you a soft summer night, friends. 

One Word Wednesday One Day Late

Shush 

Do It Yourself Kind Of Day

....

Insert something brilliant here

...

I'll be grateful :)

...

Oh come on!  Just this one time!  You can do it.  I have faith in you.

...

A Little Consideration Please

So I'm sitting here tonight, with nothing really significant willing to be written, or not yet, I should say, when I suddenly realized how grateful I am for a lesson my parents taught me.  Consideration for those around you.

In a nutshell, it means consider who is occupying the same space, the same listening area, the same quiet time, the same clean air, the same sights.  Put yourself in their place.  If you were trying to sleep, would you appreciate a blaring television?  If you are a non smoker, would you appreciate being forced to smell it?  If slamming doors and stomping created anxiety within your otherwise peaceful being would you slam, stomp, speak in a tone above a normal indoor voice?

I am acutely aware, always, of the people around me.  I am grateful for the lesson in consideration, and grateful to force it into those around me... even if it takes my whole life.  *sigh*

Eeyore figured it out...

Dinner Avoided

Went for a little walk today down at the river.

I saw a little this...

and a little that...

Couldn't get near this little sand piper type bird...

Kicked this off the log I was sitting on.

And on my way back, down the path I had just come from (where these did not exist before - I know I was track watching)... 

I saw several of these...

Have you felt like something is watching you?  Well, tonight, I am grateful I didn't get eaten...

Happy Canada Day Friends!