One Part Inspiration...

The beautiful tub that my friend gave me.  I saw one like it at her place and she told me her source and found one for me.  It turns out it has a special meaning to her because it came from her dad's collection.  I planted impatiens exclusively and on purpose in honour of my Mom, who loved impatiens.  An added bonus was that when we were dragging it over to it's new spot (it must have weighed about 90 pounds) I discovered that the little hydrangea which I had despaired would ever come back, showed me it's tenacity and displayed a new sprout.  I cheered it on and clapped loudly so it would be encouraged. The advantage of having a young driver is that you can simultaneously drive (back-seat driver) and take a picture of the plane that is flying so low it looks as if it is coming straight for the window.  If my camera had been more high-tech, I could have got a series of pictures.  It was so impressive to see it flying that low !  Perfect...

I was at a dinner a while ago, honouring one of my former bosses.  Her daughters both spoke about their mom and all the ways she had influenced them.  One of them talked about her mother's no-nonsense approach to life.  She said there were times when she was growing up that her mother would used the phrase " Now, go, put on your big-girl panties and do it" when her daughter was putting up a fuss about  not wanting to do something that was within her scope.  The phrase has stuck in my head ever since, because even though I am a "big girl", there are many times when I don't want to do something that I have to - and when it happens, " Put on your big-girl panties and do it " echoes in my head. Some examples would be these: I had a kitchen cupboard guy coming to give me an estimate.  It happened to be 'the' day that every other trades person was dropping by so I figured one more couldn't hurt.  Just as I hung up the phone from making...

This picture makes me smile. I took a picture so you could smile too.  Look down the sidewalk and do you see what I see?  The garden starting to come together. (insert happy dance)  In the demolition phase here, I had a somewhat desperate feeling  when I realized it was not feasible to have a garden.  I had left the farm where we had built up our collections of hostas and peony (loved that peony) and other plants [which have names, but I can't remember them] - and now was at The Pokeaway -  looking at a sidewalk filled with leftover insulation. I said to a friend of mine "It's not the year for the garden" but in my heart, I felt more sad than matter-of-fact because plants are an easy way to bring joy and it would be another season before I got to play in the garden.  It was a long winter. We finally were able to start on the garden last year.  We added shaped beds and bark mulched around the place.   It looked so much b...

"The rain falls on the just and the unjust."  "But it rains more on the just, because the unjust steals the just's umbrella." Ever feel like one of those days?  I purposely choose not to focus on 'having one of those days'  in this forum.  This doesn't mean that I don't have them.  Or form the posts about said days in my head. I generally figure that talking about bad days and grumpy moods is better left to a place where posterity won't remember it. But there are days when the rain falls, and plans fail. Days when wheels spin and simple things become complicated.  Today, was one of those.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my groups and I made a Top Ten Happiness Scale. It came as no surprise that ' things ' and ' stuff ' didn't get on the list. There was no ' big screen t.v.' or 'in ground pools'.  No one listed 'a new ipod' or 'a laptop computer'. Most of their list had to do with events shared with family and friends - like Christmas, or graduations, or trips, or neigbourhood BBQ's. What amazes me even more is that the people in the group are all dealing with significant losses. And yet, for the most part they accept what life has handed them and fill up their hearts with simple joys. I am always inspired by them. I have been thinking about contentment a lot in the past several months.  I have a tendency to make things or events the focal point of happiness, when really it is a decision of the heart to find contentment.  Even the apostle Paul referenced this struggle: " But I said it, not because I h...

Since we have redone the office area, I am reorganizing files and papers.  It's one of my favourite  things to do.  The fact that it is in the middle of the afternoon and I am surrounded by paper, a camera and the floor is piled high with bbq tools (found them in storage while I was putting papers away) and the vacuum and left over paint has not stopped me from becoming distracted and writing this post. One of the things I found was the binder-less (son needed the binder for school) stack of papers in which I have recorded various bill payments and kept a list of things we need for taxes.  Then I ran across another piece of history.  Our goals and objectives.  Every once in a while, my husband and I sit down and have a discussion about where we are and where we want to be.  Every good mother wants to make sure that she is hitting some sort of target.  And every good dad will good-naturedly sit down with the mom and talk it out and write it out a...

"Eventually you realize that the reason God didn't always answer your prayers is that He was answering your mom's prayers."... R. Brault Mother's Day Week is always a fun programming week.  I get to design my programs around mothers and read up on all sorts of pertinent information.  This year, I had a stroke of genius.  For part of the program, I threw out "If mothers were (noun) they would be (fill in type of noun) because (reason why)" to my group and had them fill it in.  For your reading pleasure, I am going to let you in on some of my favourites: If mothers were a vehicle, they'd be a station wagon because the pack a lot of kids around and have to be practical. If mothers were a candy, they'd be a sucker because they get suckered into a lot of stuff by children with long eyelashes. If mothers were a food, they'd be a marshmallow - hard and crusty on the outside and soft and gooey on the inside. If mothers were a flower...