Angelic Clouds ~ Deeds Count

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. ~ Dan Brown

When you look at the photo above, what do you see?  I see a cloud angel.  I snapped this with my trusty iPhone camera awhile back.  Then I came across the quote above from my friend over at Chalkboard Quotes click here to visit  and thought it was a perfect match for a Saturday!

Do you ever think of what will happen when you die?  Who will remember you?  In what capacity will you be remembered and by how many people?  Will you be the memory that brings a smile, a tear, a blessing?  Or will you be the memory which dies after time?

I want to make a difference in lives that I touch, in the people that I connect with in my life.  I don’t need a big legacy to leave.  Just a smile, a happy memory of something I’ve said or done to help, a small token of kindness that perhaps didn’t change your life, but simply changed the moment for the better.

I’m simple that way.  I just want to help you find happiness.  To be your biggest fan and to support your amazing self.  I just want you to find inner peace and revel in it!

Shine On!

xo

An Easy Way to Increase Your Happiness!

Do you want to know the secret of how to increase your happiness quotient, increase someone else’s at the same time and make a difference in both of your lives the easy way?  How about if I told you that you could learn in less than 8 minutes?  Do you have 8 minutes to learn?  Well, without further ado…

My dear friend RoSy blogged this awhile back ~  check out her blog!   It made such a difference in my day that I knew I had to repost it for you!  I adore what I do which is connecting with others via my blog, my cards and my FB page (besides just meeting people in real life!).  I am a big proponent of telling people how I feel and for feeling that gratitude in sharing how blessed I feel to have so many wonderful people in my life!

I hope it made you smile and perhaps even changed your way of thinking!  If you are looking for more happiness in your life, this is the answer…baby steps to a happier you ~ and in turn, making someone else happy as well!

Shine On!

xo

P.S.  Thanks RoSy ~ I’m grateful for you! xo

A Psalm of Thanksgiving

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

² Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

³ Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

⁵ For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.  – Psalm 100:1-5

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating today ~ and to those who are not, I wish you gratitude, love, peace and health.  This is the psalm that my Mom repeated to us nightly until we were able to repeat it properly and I’ve never forgotten it!  As I like to say, it’s a keeper ~ just like you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Shine On!

xo

How To Count Your Blessings

With the coming of Fall, begins the coming of change,

which brings a glance back into our hopes and desires,

and reveals the multitude of wondrous blessings that shape our lives.

Thanksgiving is on the horizon, Christmas and Hanukkah too as you can see in the stores with their brightly lit decorations lately.  I realize that Fall has already started, but I like the quote and the card so I used it today.  Because I think now’s the time for us to realize this change in our lives and begin to count our blessings that are shaping our lives.

Sometimes, it’s hard to find blessings and to count them, especially after a loss.  Minds can get stuck in that raceway of grief and we are unable to stop the car and get out to stretch our minds.  It’s like being on that hamster wheel and feeling afraid to jump off, so we continue to run the same sad tapes in our minds.  It takes courage, it takes a hand to hold and it takes strength to put mind over matter.  And it’s not easy.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

Finding and accepting the new normal which comes after the death of a loved one can be difficult as anyone who has had a loved one already know.  To count our blessings and get into a gratitude state afterwards is often a steep hill for some people because they are mired in the loss.  I’ve watched as my own Mom stagnated in her sadness since the loss of my Dad 1.5 years ago.  Weekends are the hardest for her as that was when he was home all day and she misses that part of her life.

So how do you count your blessings:

1.  Start small.  Be thankful you are here.

2.  Look up ~ spiritually and literally!

3.  Connect with others.

4.  Start a gratitude journal ~ write down one or more items every day for which you are grateful ~ more if you can do it!

5.  Write down the people in your life ~ list why you are grateful for them.  Everyone is here to help you in one way or another.

Sometimes we have to start small in our gratitude.  There’s no need to be grandiose about this ~ begin with I woke up this morning for that’s something we are all grateful for ~ we are happy you are here!  Then you can expand a bit, being thankful for the ability to read, to speak, to see ~ even to breathe clean air!  You can be thankful for your shelter, the heat or fans if you are in warmer weather ~ air conditioning!  Gratitude for food, the ability to taste and smell!  Perhaps you’re thankful for the electronics in your life so that you can see the world-wide connections available to you.  Do you get what I mean?

You can be thankful for the people in your life, past and present.  Each one has given you their presence as a present even if sometimes it’s harder to realize what the present was ~ but there’s always a present in that silver lining.  You just have to search a bit sometimes.

Do you see what I mean?  It just takes time, but you could list so much that you are appreciative of ~ I know I can!

I’m grateful for our connections here on the blog o’sphere!

Thanks for being here!

Shine On!

xo

Need Your Vote PLEASE before Thanksgiving (Thursday)!

Dan Richards and his son

I’m asking for your help today and knowing how wonderful our community is, I am hoping that you will do me this small favor because it’s a good thing to do, it takes 3 minutes tops and because it helps others.  A friend sent me a heartwarming email with Dan Richards’ story about how he is a local hero who makes a difference in his own son’s life as well as many others who are disabled.  His story touched my heart and I forwarded the email to whomever I thought would vote.  The funny thing is that 2 friends have already contacted me this morning to tell me that they know him personally (I don’t know him nor did I know of him and his great personality), and they took the time to tell me how happy they were that I had forwarded the email about their friend.  Small world, isn’t it?

Dan is an inspiring football coach in Point Pleasant, NJ who has been instrumental in starting a “Challenger Football Team”.  Challenger Sports are run by volunteers who provide sport experiences for children with disabilities.  Baseball, soccer, track, surfing, basketball, they all have Challenger Teams.  What a heartwarming story to hear how people are MAKING A DIFFERENCE in the lives of children with special needs!

There is a team now of 13 players who practice on Thursdays and play on Sundays.  The local high school team players are the Challenger players’ buddies ~ they teach them the game, they practice with them and they play with them.  What a win-win situation for all involved!

So why am I telling you all this?  Coach Dan has submitted a video to the NFL’s contest “My Football Story” ~ the winners get a trip to the Super Bowl complete with a “Meet and Greet” session and other goodies.  Please click on the link below, watch the 3 minute video and then “LIKE’ it so that he can win!

Click here to vote for Coach Dan Richards!

Please feel free to share!  Thank you!

Shine On!

xo

P.S.  Here’s another little video of the team!

Join the Fun!

Bloggers Unite ~ Come Join the Holiday Card Exchange!

One of last week’s blog post was about the priceless feeling that I got when Julia sent me 2 cards.  Truly, it just touched my heart.  I feel that we all have such amazing connections and I’d love to give you that great feeling as well ~ it was so much fun ~ why not expand it?

And then I found that I’m not the only one who feels this way as Andrea Kelly in the blog post below also wants to host a card exchange so I thought I’d join her.  Connecting again, I thought we could expand the holiday card exchange and I’d let her take the lead since she’s got an easy way to sign up on her blog!

The Hand-Written Life is all about personal connection, inspiration, heartfelt messages and fostering those ideals whenever possible. So Click Here to sign up between now and November 29th to join and be part of the Holiday Celebrations!

Now for me, I’ll give you an easy way to send the holiday cards ~ CLICK HERE!

Above are just a few cards from the card catalog on my website.  There are thousands of cards to choose from or you can make your own!  Upload photos and even videos to add to the greeting card that you make from your home computer but is received through the mail as a real card!  Write in your own handwriting font, sign with your own signature and customize your card easily!

For those of you who haven’t signed up yet, but are interested – what are you waiting for?  Remember, you don’t have to be a regular reader of either of our blogs, or even a blogger, to join in – and cards can center around any winter holiday!  But you better hurry…there are only a few days left!

Shine On!

xo

 

A Present for Presence

Let me tell you a story…I went to my mailbox the other day and this was what I found inside, nestled in with the junk mail and the bills.  What a lovely surprise, don’t you think?  Excuse the photos, I was using my iPhone and I’m not very good with it as you can tell ~ but my heart’s in the right place, so please keep reading….

So I opened the envelope…and saw a note from my dear blogging pal Julia Denton over at Defeat Despair!   I was so excited to get this which is my early Christmas present from her!  You see, she just celebrated her First Year Blogaversary and she threw a special party for her readers and sent US gifts!  So it actually wasn’t a surprise as I knew she would be sending something special.

She offered to send a card that we could send using one of her photos (she has amazing photos on her blog) ~ so I picked the photo below and sent in my request.

Lo and behold (sorry, I’ve always wanted to use that phrase), this is what she made for me!  The amazing photo with a black heart border and white card…complete with matching envelope!

And then also, the same but in green!

As she wrote in her note, she didn’t know which one I would prefer so she sent both!  How Sweet!!!

The point of my story is this ~

you never know whose heart you touch when you blog ~

when we reach out in love, we always make a difference ~

you never know what small gift means so much to someone’s heart ~

we are all connected in special ways ~ I treasure our connections! 

Thank you Julia for being such a special connection in my heart!  Please make sure that you stop by to visit Julia and DEFEAT DESPAIR!  and tell her Misifusa’s Blog ~ The Presents of Presence sent you!

Shine On!

xo

Hello Daily Prompt!

Today’s Daily Prompt asks which Superpower we would choose ~ and I’m torn between the ability to speak and understand any language or the ability to make any 2 people agree with each other.  As synchronicity would have it, I already had written today’s post about World Hello Day so perhaps that qualifies my decision to get BOTH superpowers! 🙂

This morning I found out that yesterday was the 41st annual World Hello Day ~ did you know?  From the website, here I found out that anyone can participate simply by greeting 10 people!  This demonstrates the importance of personal communication for preserving peace which is something that I think many of us strive for in our lives and through our blogs.  To reach out to others in order to connect is what I strive for myself.  How about you?

I thought I’d share even if I am a day late ~ it certainly can’t hurt!  Perhaps you will feel inspired to say hello to 10 people today ~  in real life and perhaps via blogging as well!  Imagine how much good we could do if we all just said hello to someone else!  Baby steps, that’s what it takes to reach world peace…are you willing to say hello?  Please feel free to share this post as well ~ we could all use a kind greeting today!

I found a bunch of ways to say hello here.   I can’t guarantee that it’s correct, but I thought it was a fun way to start a Friday!

Mirëdita (to our Albanian friends)

Ahalan (to our Arabic speaking friends)

Parev (to our Armenian friends)

Zdravei / Zdrasti (to our Bulgarian friends)

Nei Ho (to our Cantonese speaking Chinese friends)

Dobrý den / Ahoj (to our Czech friends)

Goddag (to our Danish friends)

Goede dag, Hallo (to our Dutch friends)

Hello (to our English friends)

Saluton (to our Esperanto speaking friends)

Hei (to our Finnish friends)

Bonjour (to our French friends)

Guten Tag (to our German friends)

Gia’sou (to our Greek friends)

Aloha (to our Hawaiian friends)

Shalom (to our Hebrew speaking friends)

Namaste (to our Hindi speaking friends)

Jó napot (to our Hungarian friends)

Halló / Góðan daginn (to our Icelandic friends)

Halo (to our Indonesian friends)

Aksunai / Qanuipit? (to our Inuit friends)

Dia dhuit (to our Irish friends)

Salve / Ciao (to our Italian friends)

Kon-nichiwa (to our Japanese friends)

An-nyong Ha-se-yo (to our Korean friends)

Salve / Salvëte (to our Latin speaking ancient Roman friends)

Ni hao (to our Mandarin speaking Chinese friends)

Hallo (to our Norwegian friends)

Dzien’ dobry (to our Polish friends)

Olá (to our Portuguese friends)

Bunã ziua (to our Romanian friends)

Zdravstvuyte (to our Russian friends)

Hola (to our Spanish speaking friends)

Jambo / Hujambo (to our Swahili friends)

Hej (to our Swedish friends)

Sa-wat-dee (to our Thai friends)

Merhaba / Selam (to our Turkish friends)

Vitayu (to our Ukrainian friends)

Xin chào (to our Vietnamese friends)

Hylo; Sut Mae? (to our Welsh friends)

Sholem Aleychem (to our Yiddish speaking friends)

Sawubona (to our Zulu speaking friends)

As a global event World Hello Day joins local participation in a global expression of peace.  So that you know you are in good company, 31 winners of the Nobel Peace Prize are among the people who have realized World Hello Day’s value as an instrument for preserving peace and as an occasion that makes it possible for anyone in the world to contribute to the process of creating peace.

So what are you waiting for?

HELLO TO ALL!

Shine On!

xo

Daily Prompt: A Bird, a Plane, You!

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/daily-prompt-power/

You get to choose one superpower. Pick one of these, and explain your choice:

• the ability to speak and understand any language
• the ability to travel through time
• the ability to make any two people agree with each other

Photographers, artists, poets: show us POWER.

International Label Day

The Presents of Presence aka Misifusa’s Blog

“International Label Day is a holiday that was founded right here in WordPress, based on a Daily Post prompt, in 2012. It is a holiday that celebrates the words that we choose to let shape us, the subcultures we are proud to be part of, and the surprising meaning of the labels we all choose for ourselves.  Some of us are immediately drawn to a single word, others find a mantra, and still others have a combination of words that co-exist with each other.

This holiday is a glimpse into the labels that you might not see at a glance, or even a second or third look.  Yet, they are the important labels — the ones that shape the how and why of us.  It takes a certain amount of strength to label yourself ~ why not try it for yourself?”

Click here to visit Rara who inspired us all! ~ Thanks Rara!

Please share below or jump right on in and join us!

Shine On!

xo

Bethannchiles did it too!  Cick here to see her post!

Update:  I found a new app besides wordle which was the way I made the first label pic above ~ this one is found here at tagxedo which is really cool!  I have to tell you that I found it via another blogger called TwinDaddy ~ make sure you stop by to see him as well ~ click here!  Thanks TwinDaddy!

The Dalai Lama’s Cat

Michelle’s Weekly Pet Challenge is for animals/pets.  I realize that I could give you another special photo of my darling American Bobtail Tiffy, but since she’s approved the following post, I now hit publish freely without reserve.  Because today’s post is about the above book which I bought on a lark on Amazon the other day for $1.99 ~ and it’s kept me enthralled right to the end.  In fact, it opened my eyes, my ears, my heart, my soul and most importantly, my mind which was what I was yearning for a book to do in a nice, easy manner.

Being a cat lover has its perks in reading this book because it’s as if our darling Tiffy had just struck up a conversation with me, giving me the impetus to change my ways of thinking without preaching, by simply being and showing and opening my mind to choices that I could decide to take on my life’s path.  HHC, Rinpoche and all the other cute names that the cat above went by, allowed me to slide into a different way of looking at life that I highly recommend.

So if you need a book to read which has an easy read feel to it and yet has substance,

I highly recommend The Dalai Lama’s Cat!

Shine On!

xo

Click here to join Michelle’s Weekly Pet Challenge!