In Retrospective – Goodbye Daily Post Prompt

The Daily Post Prompt’s ending has me being retrospective considering over the years I have enjoyed the one word prompting and the community of bloggers who took the time to write posts that used it.

Having The Daily Prompt brought many new readers to my blog and also gave me the opportunity to meet new bloggers to follow and to connect with over the years.  While I don’t know the reason for the ending of it, I am grateful to have been a part of it, on and off, over the years I’ve been blogging.

My heartfelt thanks to those who by their imagination and perseverance, gave us the daily prompting as by their hard work and ingenuity, we became a community of people who could participate or not, depending on our blogging styles.

Keep shining your heartlights dear bloggers!  We are still a strong community and I look forward to continuing to read your posts and sharing our stories.

Shine On!

xo

Empathic Eclipse Of The Heart

I’m struggling today.  Surely it’s due to a bunch of different occurrences, but my heart is heavy and my solar plexus is filled with sadness.  The news of the school shooting in Florida made me cry for the unbelievable news haunts me.  To have sent your children and loved ones off to school on Valentine’s Day, where they should be safe, and to have this life changing situation happen is beyond my understanding.

How can our world be so filled with destruction, ugliness and hate?

I don’t want to discuss gun control so please don’t go there.  I just am in this place of extreme sadness for the lack of peace and love in our world.  My heart aches for the losses of life.  I’m saddened to my core by the lack of love that swirls, the absence of peace and I ache for healing for all of us.  I feel the fear that events such as these increase and the extreme heartbreak that lingers.

Yet, as stories emerge of bravery, and of courage under fire, I know that there are many good-hearted people in the world who do step up in the face of danger as shown by the courageous acts that are recounted.  I hang onto the hope from hearing them.  But I’m also crushed that the heroes have fallen as they protected others.  Surely there’s a special place in Heaven for those who give up their lives in order to save someone else.

We have another eclipse today as well which certainly affects us all, especially empaths like me.  Our weather is changing too which doesn’t help so I am honoring myself and allowing these feelings to flow onto this page in order to help to heal.  Perhaps you are feeling similarly?

Dear friends, globally let’s shine our heartlights and raise the loving vibrations of our community here in the blogsphere.  Please let’s send healing thoughts with light and love into the world today.  Please let’s drive out the darkness with our heartlights.

I’m sending you all love and healing vibrations of community.  Let’s join together to send prayers and support to those victims and their families as they face the aftermath of what is becoming all too common.  Thank you for reading my post.

Shine On!

xo

I Am In Love With Hope

The above is an excerpt from Mitch Albom’s book, Have A Little Faith which touched my soul and I just felt the need to share it.  So please enjoy and let me know what you think!

I am in love with hope.  That’s the truth.

Shine On!

xo

Honeybee Spirit Totem Animal Message

I thought that yesterday’s post about my 3 encounters with the honeybee might interest you as to what I found the message to be for me.  Perhaps you’ve had a visit from a honeybee as well, so I thought I’d share what I found from here.

When the honey-bee spirit animal appears to you, it’s calling your attention to your everyday miracles. Just look at your honey-bee totem which is so small yet able to achieve so much.

The honey-bee symbolism is also of community and teamwork. Use your talents to help humanity and make your personal contributions to change the world for the better.

Add your voice to the collective consciousness. Raise the vibrations of the world you live in.

Wow!  Who knew the honeybee was such a powerful totem?  And as I begin my next chapter into uncharted territory, I am grateful to that sweet little honeybee’s message.  I love our community of bloggers and the friendships we have made.  I am hoping now that we are transitioning into our new home, I can begin again to write, to read, to comment and to grow our community.

Please join me in raising the vibrations of the beautiful world we live in!  It’s time to spread our wings, band together and fly like the darling honeybee!

Shine On!

xo

 

 

 

Daily Prompt ~ It’s Rocky Here!

Depending upon the situation, I usually prefer to rely on myself for too many times I’ve been berated for being sad ~ even having been told that my personality had changed when my Dad died and I was left with the burdens that followed.  To this day, that thoughtless comment has changed the way I feel about sharing and has caused me to pull away from those in whom I confided and trusted.   I’m surrounded by well-meaning friends and family who sometimes just don’t get it and when I’m feeling that misunderstood, I simply hibernate until I can re-emerge the happy girl that they prefer ~ and they have shamelessly told me that they prefer the happy girl.

What is it about being sad that bothers people, especially when there’s a death, a loss, an illness and many stressors involved?  Is it proper to simply pretend all the time like they do?  That all is honky dory instead of reality?  Being that one dimensional is boring to me and quite utterly superficial.  I’m not a proponent of being sad all the time, but I do allow myself to feel my feelings.  I can’t help it.  I am ME and I am not them.

The older I get, the more I have moved away from such personalities.  I find it hard to believe that being real and actually answering the ‘how are you?’ with a truthful answer, even couched with the positivity that I know things will get better, can be misconstrued to such a degree.  Perhaps with those, it is better to simply say, ‘fine’ and move on as that’s how they’d prefer the answer.  There’s no depth when we answer in a robotic manner when it’s truly not fine.

I have friends and family whom I trust to help when needed and I seek them out.  We share a trust which allows us to help each other on a deeper level.  Fine, just doesn’t cut it with our friendship when the tone of our voices show that things are anything but fine.  We support each other and we allow each other space.  We’ve connected beyond the ‘fine.’

Most of the time, I am ‘fine’ but I like to use more descriptive words ~ happy, healthy, blessed, feeling yippy skippy!  (ok, I just made that up, but you get what I mean!)  But I also know how to self-soothe and reach out when needed.  You know that I love to connect with others, so if you need me, you know I’ll be there for you!  I will hear the un-fine in the word fine and lend an ear, a hand and a heart!

Shine On!

xo

Daily Prompt: I Am a Rock

 

Is it easy for you to ask for help when you need it, or do you prefer to rely only on yourself? Why?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us SELF.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/daily-prompt-self/

Literary Contest ~ Friday Deadline!

Writing contest at Literary Bits

What:  In your best, most succinct writing – and in 100 words or less – tell us why you write.  Dig deep.  Why do you continue to put pen to page and what mark, through your craft, do you hope to make on the world?

How:  http://www.literarybits.com/our-first-literary-bits-essay-writing-contest/

When:  You have until 5:00 p.m. EST on Friday, April 26 to enter.

The Prize:  Winner will receive one Moleskine Classic Extra Large Soft Cover ruled notebook (7.5 x 10). Picture above.

Click the link to go to the contest.  Best of luck!  It might be fun to think about why you write!  Let me know if you enter so that I can read your submission!  Forgive the double posting today, but I wanted you to have enough time to enter if you wish!

So here are my 100 words on this Earth Day explaining WHY I WRITE:

“I write to empty my heart, my mind and my soul of the turbulence inside which ebbs and flows. With my words, I invite others to commune, to share, to connect, to soothe and to be soothed. I write to list my intentions and to perforate the mask which binds my soul. I write to free my heart, to give flight to the wings of happiness which stand caged beyond my reach. I write to encompass this land of ours, with a comforting balm of happiness, to erase the hatred which storms the earth with lightning bursts of terrorism.”

Shine On!

xo

Today is Your Day to Twinkle Sparkle Glow and Shine

Today is Your Day to Twinkle Sparkle Glow Shine

Officially it’s January 1st, 2013, and with the dawn, a new year is heralded in today and officially closes the door on 2012….at least in my book.  I awoke this morning with the little ditty of Rabbit Rabbit in my head (and out my mouth) before my first sip of coffee.  I’m not taking any chances on the first day of the month AND new year!  Are you scratching your head and wondering why?  Here’s the answer!  https://misifusa.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/rabbit-rabbit/

In the meantime, I thought this was a great card to begin the new year with ~ Don’t you love the optimism of this card ~ it has the ability to make you smile and to increase your desire to continue to SHINE ON!  This is yet another year to shine for all of us!  Are you ready?  On your mark, get set and let’s Twinkle Sparkle Glow and Shine On this year!

It’s only a matter of attitude ~ a shift if you will ~ and like any habit, it’s one that you can acquire easily without much extra effort…you just have to remember that you are a shining star.  That’s it!

You shine on with your attitude, your words, your expressions and by being yourself!  Even the brightest stars may have days when we feel less than sparkly, but our light is always shining in our souls!  I would love to see us all twinkling, sparkling, glowing and shining this year!  Imagine if as a connected community we allowed our inner lights to blossom and ignite the lights in others!  We could be a fireball of enthusiastic bloggers who connect like the amazing twinkly lights of the New Year’s Ball in Times Square!  Imagine the world cheering us on as we descend next New Year’s Eve on a year filled with every type of shining moment imaginable!  Imagine the power of a community filled with love, light and individuals who’ve come together with enthusiasm, optimism and in inspiration!

So please join me this year as we travel on our Journey of Endurance ~

Igniting our inner stars to

Twinkle,

Sparkle,

Glow

and Shine On! 

Happy 2013!

xo

Christmas Spirit on its way!

So after I put in one of my favorite scenes in movieland ~ Mame’s rendition of We Need a Little Christmas Now, into yesterday’s post, I began thinking about that special movie ~ all the amazing quotes from it that I loved.  Now the one I gave you, was the 1973 version with Lucille Ball and Bea Arthur which is a classic unto itself.  However, my favorite rendition is the original movie called Auntie Mame with Rosalind Russell from 1958.

So I got my computer, put it on the kitchen table, started some broth in a pot on the stove and checked out my trusty Amazon account (thinking of ShareChair http://sharechair.wordpress.com/in the back of my head…what would she do to find a free version of a the movie) and began!  What I found was a FREE VERSION with my Prime account…and I could watch it from my computer, while I made comfort food for my family and myself.

So as I chopped veggies and chicken and whipped up homemade chicken soup complete with a dash of love and then scooped Nestle Toll House chocolate chip ready made dough from a container and ‘baked’ chocolate chip cookies, I watched my movie in the kitchen by myself…fresh balsam candle twinkling and making the house smell like love and Christmas…and with food ready for our bellies, filled with love and comfort.

In the midst of all of my kitchen antics, my doorbell rang ~ my neighbor brought me a huge homemade wreath ~ made with the branches from our street which had fallen and are being picked up by the town this week…TAngel and her husband had painstakingly picked up branches of magnolia trees, spruce and pine and she had woven the most beautiful wreath I have ever seen, complete with colorful Christmas ball ornaments to brighten my day.  I was in awe of her talent, let alone the fact that she had made it for me.  I feel so grateful and so blessed.  To be given such amazing holiday spirit by a kind friend! (See pic above ~ I just took a pic of it, added a border and voila!  It’s the front of her thank you card from me!  If you’re new, check out my website ~ http://www.rememberchristmas.com/deanery

And when I was all done with my movie, chicken soup ready for the family dinner and homemade (ahem) cookies for dessert, I got online to see if I had any emails waiting…and there you all were…our beautiful blogging community…

Thank you my friends.  Your outpouring of loving comments made me cry…

and I want you to know how blessed I feel…thank you.

I BELIEVE ~  Shine On!

xo

Hurricane Sandy Help from Faraway!

So many people have helped those affected by Hurricane Sandy!  Recently I saw that a friend who moved to Ocala, Florida, inspired her children’s school and community to donate items to help those in New Jersey ~ her childhood home.  On FB, I watched as she asked and got help and donations and even got a truck to bring them to N.J.!  The power of one person ~ multiplied by hundreds of other like-minded hearts ~ can change lives!

I was inspired by them and so in just a few minutes, I made the following 3 panel card to thank them!  I thought I’d share to show you that sometimes I simply send one of our cards from our catalog and other times, I make the card myself.  It doesn’t take talent, or skill…it just takes a few photos or logo and a few minutes of your time.  There’s no limit to what your imagination can do with SendOutCards! (Green dotted lines that you see are not on the cards, they are just to show you the edges of your card ~ whatever is outside the green dotted box is not printed.  Because these are pictures of what I did, you will sometimes see the lines, but I can assure you, they are not on the cards received through the mail! 🙂

I chose a 3 panel card (see above) as I had a bunch of pictures and I wanted to send a video so I wanted a bunch of panels to fill up.  The 3 panel card cost $.93, all of the pictures cost $.31 (I could have had 100 pictures or just one ~ the price was still the same) and to add the video to the card cost $.31, postage is $.45 for a stamp so…

it costs exactly $2 with postage included

This is why I love what I do!  I just uploaded their pictures from Facebook and their website to my free SendOutCards (SOC) account, then I decided what backgrounds, fonts and colors I wanted, I then wrote a note from my heart and finally I found their address, filled in the blanks in the virtual envelope provided by SOC and voila!  I clicked send ~ within 24 hours, my card was printed, stuffed into the envelope, licked, addressed, stamped and mailed for me!

There is nothing easier, nor more fun, nor less expensive and yet priceless!

I had to share…so please indulge me!

Do you need to thank someone?

Click below…you’ll be glad you did!

Got Gratitude?

xo

I Am…a Challenge….

This morning I am inspired by bloggers LouAnn and also by Cristian ~ both of whom I enjoy following!  Cristian began the whole thing the other day by writing 10 random things about himself without the fanfare of receiving an award ~ simply to let us get to know him a bit better.  who-the-is-cristian-mihai

LouAnn began this morning’s post with her rendition of 10 Random Things, following Cristian’s lead at random-things.

So it got me thinking…of darling Rhonda at help-me-rhonda.com who continues to make me laugh whenever she gets an award with her 7 random things…and I thought, why not?

Why not issue a challenge to us all ~

  A sort of chain letter blog posting to just tell us 10 random things about yourself!

Here are the rules in case this takes off (which I’m praying it will!)

1. Write 5-10 random things about yourself…try to use I AM

2.  Ping/tag whatever it’s called back to this post (or give your url below)

so that we know you are doing it!

3.  Try to keep it going so that we can learn more about our community ~ and expand it!

4.  Let me know what you think of this!

xo

So, here goes nothing! 🙂

1.  I am not a blonde by birth, but I play one in real life!

2.  I am a cat owner (have 2), but I watch the Dog Whisperer all the time.

3.  I am a great caller for take out or reservations as I adore going out to eat and not having to cook!  My best streak was for 2 weeks that I didn’t have to cook for my family ~ granted it was after a surgery and friends brought dinners but still…upon winning the lottery, my first wish will be to get someone else to cook and clean!

4.  I am a spherical thinker which to me means that I live according to my surroundings and constantly think according to that big circle around me ~ my past, my present, my future and all that encompasses the pretend circle which envelopes me as I go through life.

5.  I am in a transitional time in my life having dealt with 3 separate surgeries this year, my father’s death, the fallout from his passing, and the task of picking up the pieces in my life that I want to keep and throwing out that which doesn’t serve me anymore.

6.  I am a firm believer that it’s most important to:  Tell others through my cards how much they mean to me now (so I send a card everyday to someone) before they pass; To enjoy fresh flowers in my home whenever I want instead of by my casket when I’m dead and to connect with others while life is good ~ enjoying the Presents of Presence!

7.  I am very afraid of heights and yet I love to fly.  I yearn to take a helicopter ride and to jump out of a plane one day (Bucket List you know).

8.  I am charming (ahem ~ big smile) which is my way of saying I am quirky (see #7 as a good example)…and I believe that sometimes my hubby wishes I weren’t so darn charming!

9.  I am a people lover ~ I love to get to know others’ stories and I always root for the underdog!

10.  I am working on establishing a community for The Presents of Presence which will be expanding soon…I’d love to include you all just as you’ve included me!

I am excited to read your I AM list as well!

Please feel free to share ~ the more, the merrier!

xo