A Thanksgiving Feast of Super Sweet Bloggers!

I figured with the upcoming holiday season fast approaching, a bit of gratitude during Thanksgiving week would be appropriate ~ and give you a chance to expand your blogging reader instead of your waistlines!  🙂  So…first of all, my sincere and sweet thanks to Holly Michael at award-party(her blog is called Holly Michael’s Writing Straight ~ Connecting and Inspiring Along Life’s Crooked Lines by Author & Freelance Writer Holly Michael).  Holly’s inspirational blog along with her amazing photos of faraway places that she’s visited in her blessed lifetime will keep you coming back post after post!  Thank you again Holly for all!  I feel so grateful! xo

Now for the super sweet and gooey:

Rules for this award include:  Thank the super sweet blogger who made the nomination, Nominate a baker’s dozen of other bloggers (below) and answer five questions:

1. Cookie or cake?  Cookie – good, soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies (no nuts, raisins ok)
2. Chocolate or Vanilla? Both
3. What is your favorite sweet treat? Too many to name! 🙂
4. When do you crave sweet things the most? Equally all the time, except when I’m sleeping. LOL
5. If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be? Bon Bon

And for the sweetness award, I nominate these super-sweet blogs:

1.  serenityspell.com

Christina’s got the amazing wildlife in Florida front and center!  She makes this big ol’ world seem manageable with her photogenic views of Florida and its inhabitants.  Sprinkle in a big of inspiration and you’ve got FeyGirl’s number.  Not to be missed!

2.  waitingforthekarmatruck.com

Mimi’s got it going on at the Karma Truck!  Stop by and see her…share a cup of coffee on her porch as she’s always got something fun over there on her blog!

3.  antodesimone.wordpress.com

Antonio’s poems in English and Italian will delight you as well as his photographs!  Perhaps you’ll be inspired to learn Italian?!

4.  brainsnorts.wordpress.com

Rich’s blog is full of fun ~ stories to be read, cartoons to write captions for, news to understand…there’s so much to enjoy!  Make sure you stop by to check him out!  You won’t be disappointed!

5.  paperkeeper.wordpress.com

Bonnie’s blog always has something special for you as does her Etsy business.  She’s a lovely lady who may keep her heart in her pocket, but captures all of ours.

6. jumpingonclouds.com

Jump on clouds and ride along the journey of a woman who speaks so openly and lovingly about her recovery from PTSD and her Mom’s recent brain cancer diagnosis.

7.  livingsuccess3d.wordpress.com

Judit is an amazing  coach who will give you tools, strategies and tactics to help you with successfully transforming not only your own personal and professional world, but the world around us ~ you can count on inspirational stories, straight talk and no mumbo jumbo…what a special find!

8.  letlifeinpractices.com

Kristin’s blog is a plethora of information, inspiration and tips for your life!  Get ready to find how to Let Life…and soar!

9.  hopethehappyhugger.wordpress.com

Esperanza will hug you in her special way…enjoy her special brand of Hope & Hugs!  You know you’ll get hope because that’s what Esperanza means!

10.  thoughtsfromanamericanwoman.wordpress.com

Patty helps those in the military connect ~ in addition, she shares heartwarming stories that will always bring a smile to your face!

Please check out these super sweet bloggers…you will be happy that you did!  They are awesome!

Happy Thanksgiving week!   I”m grateful to ALL of You for your amazing posts!

Keep on Blogging!

xo

Face the Sun!

Strength. Turn your face to the sun and shadows fall behind you.

Many of us have had tough times.  By a certain age, most of us have endured moments or longer of hard times and with that, have some experience in disappointment, sadness, fear, loss and such.  What I find most interesting though is how some people have endured hardships and yet they don’t allow those moments to define them.

Having been dealt the hand of breast cancer at age 34, I have experienced sadness, fear, loss and disappointment among other things…but that’s not to say that I haven’t been able to enjoy every sunrise, every cloud formation, every season and the precious moments of spontaneous hugs from my sons and family.   I’ve seen the darkness and I’ve seen the light.  Perhaps you feel that it’s not easy living on the roller coaster of life, a sentiment which I understand.  However, what brings me comfort is that with every nightfall, I know that in a few hours, there’s a sunrise waiting for me and it’s that sunrise I choose to concentrate on and ‘turn my face to’ everyday.  I feel grateful that I am here to experience it all ~ for without having experienced the darkness, how would we ever know how spectacular the sunrise is?

You own the power to choose everyday how you are going to face the day…

Turn your face to the sun and shadows fall behind you.

You’ll be glad you did!

xo

5 Minutes of Solitude…

It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence

that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us,

as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. K.T. Jong

For those of you who are energized by a challenges, I challenge you this week to give yourself 5 minutes of uninterrupted silence a day ~ not multi-tasking silence where you turned off the radio while driving to work ~ that doesn’t count nor does taking 5 minutes on the toilet and instead of reading, you sit quietly ~  nor does the 5 minutes before you actually fall asleep and have your head on the pillow ready for sleep to envelope your mind ~ but 5 minutes where you are conscious, quiet, without doing something else and you just sit.

I recently started doing this myself and at first it was hard for me as I like to either zone out in front of the tv if I’m going to be quiet or I like to read if I”m not chatting.  However, sitting quietly for 5 minutes without doing anything is a challenge.  I started making lists in my head of what I needed to do, wondering what the noises I heard downstairs were (did one of the kids drop something?) and the continuous thought of  ‘oh man, is 5 minutes up yet?” looped in my head.

So what I’ve done is started free writing during my 5 minutes which is akin to meditating, but offers my busy body a way to keep quiet for 5 minutes while doing something.  I am not quite sure if 5 minutes of solitude allows for free writing, but for now it’s working like a charm for me and perhaps it will for you as well.

Free writing for me has been me typing on my computer for 5 minutes uninterrupted, just allowing whatever words that begin to show in my head, a space on paper.  It’s just typing (or writing if you prefer) the stream of consciousness or unconsciousness that exudes from my fingertips without constraint.  And boy oh boy has it been interesting to read.  In fact, there have been times recently that I’ve gone over and beyond the 5 minutes as the words simply type themselves on the paper and continue to roll out in long, waves of sentences and paragraphs.

Sometimes it’s been just drivel that my fingers have typed, but some of the words/meanings that have come to fruition have been quite meaningful to my life and present situation.  The thoughts have had insight to my experiences and have been able to give proper responsibility where its due.

My Monday post today is simply to TRY for 5 minutes to be quiet and just listen to yourself…take a few moments for you.  Use it as an experiment.  You have nothing to lose except 5 minutes of worry, work or multitasking…give it a week and let me know how it goes…I’d love to hear if you already do this as I’d love the feedback…and if you’re just starting, let me know if you’d prefer I keep my challenges to myself!  Ha!

Happy Monday to You!

You’re worth 5 minutes…and more!

Be good to YOU!

xo

GROW through Life…

Don’t go through life. Grow through life.

Sometimes I think we mindlessly go through life, continuing the habit of work, eat, sleep, awaken repeat…we get into the routine of doing what needs to be done during each day because it needs to be done.  Taking care of ourselves sometimes gets pushed aside in order to take care of everyone else’s needs and we allow routine and the easy thoughtless unmindful ways to take over.

Being that it’s Sunday, I thought this was a good time to broach the subject of taking care of ourselves ~ “the Sabbath is a day of rest” as my Mom puts it ~ is just the ticket to change the routine.  If it’s an excuse you need to use in order to allow yourself some time to just ‘be’ and relax, well, then here it is!

Let me remind you that there are 24 hours in a day…and you can spare 10 minutes for yourself.  The idea is to start at 10 minutes for you and then add minutes as you go.  Perhaps a little meditation could be in order…or some free writing where you can just allow your thoughts some flight…or just taking a little time to look up at the sky and notice the beauty in nature that surrounds you.

Just going through life isn’t a life…you need to GROW through life so that you can experience all that life has to offer!  I don’t want to look back at my life and wonder where the years went…I want to stroll down my own memory lane with many stops along the way, enjoying the laughter and even the tears of moments which impact my life and my family…I want to remember fun times and silly moments…I want to smile and feel peaceful for how I lived, how I treated others and even how I treated myself.  I want to remember stretching out of my comfort zone to breathe happiness into my soul.

Enjoy this Sunday!

Grow through your life!

You are worth it!

xo

It Makes a Difference…

One Starfish

A man was walking along a beach at sunrise. As he walked, he could see a young girl in the distance. He noticed that the girl kept bending down, picking something up, and throwing it into the water. Again and again she kept hurling things into the ocean. As the man came closer, he saw that the girl was picking up starfish that had been washed up by the tide. One at a time she was throwing them back into the water. When asked what she was doing, she replied, “I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, or else they will die.” “But,” said the man, “you can’t possibly save them all, there are thousands on this beach, and this must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The girl smiled, bent down, picked up another starfish and as she threw it, she replied,

“It makes a difference to that one.”

My friend JAngel sent the above story to me yesterday and I had to post it today because I loved it.  “It makes a difference to that one,” resonated with me so fully that I knew I had to share it with you today.  Just a reminder that even the smallest gesture to someone else can make a huge difference!

So please, smile today…be kind today…enjoy this Friday and please hug a friend today.

Spread sunshine wherever you go today, BE that ONE DIFFERENCE!

Happy Friday to YOU!
xo

P.S.  The original is written by “Loren Eiseley” – ”The Star Thrower,” with the child being a boy and not a girl.  The version I was sent had a girl which is why I posted it the way I did.   My special thanks to Viveka for the additional information.  Please visit her blog post here!

A Single Courageous Step…

Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin,

and a single courageous step

would carry us clear through them. -Brendan Francis

Lately I haven’t been sleeping as well as I’d like.   I don’t know about you, but sometimes I go through periods of time where sleep evades me more often than not and right now I’ve not been sleeping well.  I wake up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep because my mind continues to whir and mindless chatter of what I need to do and what needs to be done by others plagues me.  And then there is the fear of not getting everything done properly as I’m in charge of a lot these days…that fear alone can put me over the edge.   But what I’ve found is that the fears are usually paper thin and unfounded…but in the middle of the night, they feel like I’m carrying heavy bricks.

So what I’ve begun doing is imagining that each brick is one of my fears and I begin to walk ~ baby steps of course ~ and as I do, I let go of a brick with each step.  I simply drop it and allow my mind to tick it off the list that plagues me.  I drop the brick of named fear into the abyss below me and I imagine that it goes away into nothingness ~ that it simply evaporates.

Sometimes I imagine that Universe/God catches it and turns it into dust as well, but that’s only if simply dropping it doesn’t actually make it go away.  Sometimes those fear bricks have been known to not easily be released and that’s when my stepping out takes control because I’m still walking as I drop them and as I continue to walk, they are further away from me.

We all have fears which is sad because when we allow those fears to manifest, they can take over…which is why, I adore my baby steps!  Do you carry fears?  Do you sleep well?  Can you see that much of what we fear isn’t anything more than worry emphasized?

Join me in our stepping away from our fears and into the light…drop your fears, make them a kite and fly those paper-thin thoughts right out of your head today!  Let me know how it works for you ~ and what works for you!  I’d love to hear more options for my nightly episodes.

Happy Monday to you!  It’s the start of a new week!  Enjoy!!

xo

Strength…

“STRENGTH does not come from winning.

Your struggles develop your strengths.

When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender,

THAT IS STRENGTH.” —Arnold Schwarzenegger

Although I’m not a huge fan of Arnold, I do like this quote because it’s true…to look at me, to know me, to love me, is to know that part of ‘my charm’ is that I am not a big fan of pain and I have been known to yelp with a paper cut!  I am also a fainter at the sight of a needle which you would think after all of the needles that I’ve seen through my 1/2 closed eyes with fingers splayed across my face, I would be over that fear by now, but nope…again part of my charm.  Which by the way, my darling husband would love it if I were less charming (ahem), but I can’t be anything but me, so charming it is ~ much to his chagrin!

But what I lack in muscular strength, I have in spiritual and it is what gets me through life.  I would never win a prize for athleticism or physical endurance (although I do think there should be a prize given to those of us who have endured more than our share of illness/surgeries and all around ick), but the middle of the nights, all alone spiritual challenges may leave me weakened, but never completely without endurance.

I have endurance…it’s a small seed of endurance filled with love, laughter and an amazing amount of support from my family, friends, loved ones and even strangers.  I have faith which has increased over time…and I am HOPE above all.  I just never surrender.

So if your strength is waning these days, I’ll lend you mine…because that’s what friends are for.

We are all connected…you may be the weak link in the chain at the moment,

but the chain of love will protect you.

Never surrender!

Love you lots!

xo

Before the bloom fades…

Capture it before the bloom fades…

My friend CAngel took this picture for me and sent it to me yesterday and because I love it, I thought I’d share it via a card so here it is…a blue hydrangea!  Her comment resonated with me ~ “I thought you might like this photo. I thought it was so pretty that I wanted to capture it before the bloom faded.’

And then it struck me, ‘capture it before the bloom faded’ and this post was born…

Because that’s what we are always trying to do, aren’t we?  Capture life before it fades…but do we?  Can we?  Like the photo she took for me, we have snippets of moments that glisten in time for us, moments that perhaps we capture on film, on video, on tape or on paper.  Are we the sum of those moments?

On my home answering machine are 2 messages from my Dad which I keep saving.  They are the last vestiges of his voice that I have on tape and they are in fact messages that he left when he was in the hospital.  They are precious to me because of that fact but also because of what he said…he said he loved me.  Although I knew it, hearing how he felt has helped so much these past 3 weeks.  He appreciated my helping him with his business while he was unable to work and it is those 2 thoughts that hold my heart captive.

So today, before the bloom fades…

take a moment to let those around you know how you feel about them.

Send a heartfelt message in a card…

We only have today…

http://www.sendoutcards.com/126830

A Celebration of Life

If one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body,

answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.

Yesterday marked 3 weeks since my Dad passed and at the time he passed yesterday, I was out to eat with my sons, hubby and in-laws, all whom were laughing and eating and enjoying themselves.  As I glanced at my watch, I said a silent prayer to Dad, hoping that perhaps his spirit could hear me.

For I know he would have loved to have been there ~ laughing, having a good time, teasing everyone.  That’s the Dad I knew and loved.  There are many complexities to my Dad, many attributes I didn’t care for, but the seed of love, well, that’s what I know remains in my heart now.

As I watch the sun rise over the lake this morning, I am all alone which I love.  Mornings are my favorite when the house is quiet and it’s just me and my thoughts.  That’s the time that I can mourn him, let a few of the tears flow and nourish my broken heart.  It’s the ‘me’ time of day when I am strongest and I can fathom all of the grieving emotions that undulate in my heart during the day.  My health hasn’t been so great lately ~ my body, heart, mind and soul have taken a beating ~ but I am still here and still mending ~ as always,taking it one baby step at a time.

The seed of Dad’s being still exists and I see signs of it everyday.  Emails I receive from his friends, many of whom I didn’t know existed, continue to pop up in my inbox.  Notes and letters continue to arrive in my mailbox as do stories recounted of what he had said and done when he was here.  It’s these stories that remind me of the goodness of my Dad ~ and those are the seeds I want to remember.

He scattered seeds far and wide ~ most of them good ~ and that’s why we’re all here isn’t it?  To touch others’ lives by our own in the best way possible.

So that’s what I concentrate on this morning as I write today’s post…a celebration of life and remembering the love.  And as I ponder what my family would think if I were to perish tomorrow, I keep hoping that the seeds that I’m sowing today will make for a lifetime of love tomorrow.

Happy Friday to You!

xo

Embrace your Uniqueness…

Unique. Embrace your uniqueness.

Time is much too short to be living someone else’s life.

~ Kobi Yamada.

I think as we get older, it becomes easier to be ourselves.  Perhaps it’s just me, but I feel that there’s an awakening, a releasing of caring about what someone else’s thoughts are about me and a freedom which makes life so enjoyable!

I spoke with CAngel yesterday whom I only just recently met.  She was very open in telling me about her life and the recent events which had changed her life so dramatically.  Instead of being negative about the events which changed her entire life recently, when I asked her how she was, she answered, “I am well.”  She went on to tell me that she was not going to succumb to negativity in thought nor in word.  She would accept the growth that the experiences were giving her and she would take this opportunity to get to know herself better.  She looks up, reads scripture and is delving into knowing herself better in order to strengthen herself.  She even shared with me that she has intuitive skills with spirits which I found fascinating and I loved that she was embracing her uniqueness in such a grand way.  Good for you CAngel!

We all have a UNIQUENESS that is OURS ALONE!  We all have talents, strengths and weaknesses which make us ourselves.  We can live our lives covering up what makes us unique or we can celebrate our uniqueness and strengthen it.  It’s all up to You!

For me, I love my Uniqueness ~ I’m not quite sure what makes me Unique though…

Do you know what makes you Unique?  Do you celebrate your Uniqueness?

Embrace your Uniqueness!

xo