Another year comes another year goes....

Okay. So this last year wasn't all that great on the surface....but underneath the harrowing exterior,  it was the best year of my life.  So many things I learned.  I cannot see what loss, sorrows and trials accomplish....I only need to trust. The only ONE I can trust and always have...my God. I have drawn closer to Him than I ever could have, had this past year been the same as the rest of my oh so doesn't-it-look-great-on-the-outside-life...not that I have arrived but at least I know ........what DO I know?!!! I know whom I have believed ....I have commited my heart....my soul.....and as a friend of mine has so brilliantly said...."I don't consider that I have captured it and made it my own yet, but this one thing I do know, it is my one aspiration; forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize."And the prize? Well, this side of life it IS life. The other side of life? Well, eye has not seen not ear heard....so, here is a clip from Mr. Henry David Thoreau for your enjoyment and cranial exercise and to celebrate the beginning of this year we call "new"...

"Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime. By closing the eyes and slumbering and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who PLAY life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names."

In My Wonderful Life

Great song with a great movie. Says a lot about the past 8 months of my life. Merry? Happy? Well, it IS Christmas and merry and happy are like the interest rates...adjustable. But God IS great and God IS good and I am thanking Him for another day and another chance to live this life to the fullest I can manage. Some days take more effort than others, but it ALL takes paying attention to my life...one day at a time....it can, however, be a wonderful one. Merry Christmas.....

check it out

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20081123_206_A13_Mytwod112434

then check out MY dog on my phoneybaloney!!! my dog......

Say

Don't wait for a bucket list....do it now...do it today....do it forever....don't stop....life IS too short and love is waiting to be spoken....for you.....for the ones you love....Life is waiting ....get er done. 

HOME

What IS "home"? What does it mean? To you? To others? To me? It was good to get back "home" from Denver and our visit with kids and grands (which by the way ARE). However, coming home, I began to question just exactly what it is, this place we call "home". Is it a structure? A feeling? Is your "home" built around memories?  Is it truly where your heart is? Or is it just another word we so easily throw around and don't really understand or comprehend? In the last 6 months, I have lived in 3 separate structures. Were they "home" to me or just a place to sleep and cry and mull over life? Were they places to put my clothes, or to bear my heart? Is it where my dogs were? Where I played my music? Where friends and family came to see me? The place I came home to after work or sat in while I made decisions that would affect the rest of my life and the rest of my family? Here are some online definitions I looked up:

*one's place of residence

*the social unit formed by a family living together

*familiar or usual setting, congenial environment

*a place of origin

*a place where something began and flourished

*an environment offering affection and security

Looking further at the idiom "Home is where the heart is", I found this:

"You use this proverb to say that you are with the person or at the place you love the most".

Is it a place you run to, or run from? Can you have more than one home, or feel "at home" in more than one place?  Is home just a feeling of acceptance and comfort ability? Is it a place where you can be fully yourself and if so ARE you fully yourself there? I found a definition from a soldier that said "home is where you hang your helmet. Home is where you send your soul for safekeeping." Maya Angelou says "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." If that is true, then home is IN us... and in those others that we invite INside of us. So many "homes" are broken, dysfunctional, hectic, non-caring, non-secure, hellish places to reside....to hang your hat, to keep your heart! If the heart is indicative of the inner being, then inside your own self is where "home" truly is! Home is not a location but a commitment to the ones I love. And I DO. So. Being the proud owner of 2 houses, and being a vagabond for the past 6 months, not knowing WHERE my home will eventually BE, I am still able to say to myself and those I love, welcome "home".

p.s. I had a GREAT time with my family...I felt at "home" in each house...thank you all for the acceptance you provide to us, the love that you give, the people that you are and are comfotable being around us....I hope we will always be a "home" to you....

p.s.s. check out some germany pics in my flicker!