Remember to click the GIVEAWAYS tab to enter the current giveaway!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Random Positive Thoughts

Put it out there, it will happen!
This is a truism. When an inspired thought is worked on to the point where it materializes into writing somewhere - anywhere (a dream board, a journal, a list) - chances of it actually coming to pass are great. I have no
science to back this up. Just personal experience. experiences. When we let it be just a good idea and don't process it to the point of writing it down, it slips through. I believe in goal setting, planning, and especially dreaming big.




Separation is temporary.
Whether sending a child to school for the first time, or burying a loved one ... I absolutely know that we will be reunited. I also believe in feeling everything. Feel fun, feel joy, feel excitement ... but go ahead and really truly feel grief, feel pain, feel loneliness. Just don't hang on to the negative emotions. Feel them fully, and then bid them adieu.




Good things really can happen to good people!
It's not always bad things that happen to good people ... so I try to grab the good things and exploit them, bask in them, exaggerate them, dwell on them!




There is rest for the weary.
We just sometimes have to demand it. Not only will we tired people feel better, but everyone will like us more if we get our rest.


Laughing is good for me. And for you.
So laugh every day. Period.



On a different note:
I've had some good food success lately! And DANG ... I didn't get a picture of last night's dinner! Black bean burgers topped with quinoa salad. It was super-yum! But I did get some pictures of other successes in the food department:








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thursday, May 23, 2013

maybe I should write more ...

I just finished reading a bunch of my daughter's blog posts. I started with just one ... and I couldn't stop. She's an amazing writer. What I like most is that she's real.




I've been missing the joy of blogging the past several months. For a while I got totally caught up in making sure I was posting often enough to keep my blog friends coming back. I didn't want to lose anyone. Bad reason to blog. It got overwhelming. And then ... well, I sort of turned inward and didn't want to share. I knew if I sat down to blog it would be meaningless fluff. I actually love meaningless fluff blogs when I'm in the mood to veg. But it's not what I write. I write about things that mean something to me. I like to write what I feel. And during my of and on hiatus from blogging I've done a pretty good job of filling up my journal. But after reading Brooke's blog posts, I'm missing how it feels to share.
So here's what I'm feeling tonight. sitting on my bed. having just lost miserably to my daughter and her friend with Just Dance 3 (but glad I worked up a little sweat). Sierra leaves for Norway on Monday morning.




She's been in Utah at the Mission Training Center for the past month. It was killer saying goodbye to her there, but now (although I would have it no other way) my heart is ripping apart as I'm silently saying goodbye to her all over again. Norway is worlds away for me. I'm not really good at separation. I cry every time someone leaves. Sometimes I even cry when Azure leaves for school in the morning. I miss people when I'm not with them.




And with Sierra leaving the country, my heart hurts more as I think about Bryan in the Philippines. I miss that boy.




I miss his gourmet cooking even though it cost us a bazillion dollars every time he watched a new episode of Good Eats. I miss being able to turn over all my confusion over electronics to him. I miss his "your momma" jokes and our banter when I'd throw it back at him and we end up belly-laughing because when I'd say it to him I was actually dissing myself.




I miss the time in my life when we were a big family of 7 - everyone still living at home. The 3 little kids would stand at the picture windows waving at the big kids catching the bus. Then we'd spend the day baking cookies, dumping out boxes of McDonald toys, watching Snow White, and just loving each other ... till everyone came home. My house was never really tidy. But I don't care - I cared then ... especially if someone stopped in unexpectedly. Thankfully, though, I knew I was living "the good old days" and I loved my life. So no regrets ... just a nostalgia that is a weird combination of pleasure and pain.
I feel anticipation and excitement. So much on the horizon, and it's all a surprise. I mean - it's a surprise to me. I don't know what's next, I just feel the anticipation. Do you ever get that way?
I feel happy - Azure and her friend, Kelsey are laughing so hard that they sound like a couple of noisy goats. It makes me happy when my children are happy.
So that's what I'm feeling tonight. Thanks for being there, blogging world. It's been good to share again.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Put it out there ... it will happen.

It's crazy to me -- the power of the mind.


Has anyone read the very old book "As A Man Thinketh" by James Allen? It's really good. Short. And good. I wonder when science will figure out WHY and HOW that works. You know - becoming what we think we are; the law of attraction; sudden flashes of pure knowledge. I love it - and I don't really need to know why or how it works. I'm just glad it does.


(image from here
Here's another thing: I'm becoming more and more amazed at how, at age 54, I'm learning new stuff about life. Just stuff - not math quotients, not grammar - nothing like that. Just life lessons. Important life lessons! I love that I'm learning and I just wonder ... at age 84 - how much more am I going to understand? And when I look back at how I act at age 54 will I think I was terribly foolish?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thursday, May 2, 2013

happiness

I joined up with Brooke in her goal to read 100 books this year. I have a lot of reading to do this month to catch up! Anyway, I just finished reading a darling kids book, "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler". My mother recently read it and sent it to me for a break from my heavier reading. LOVED it. Anyway, near the end of the book is this quote which I also love:
"Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around."


Thanks to my girls for all the happiness they give me.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad