MY MY MY

How time flies!! As I sit here in my living room in beautiful Colorado, with my husband, dogs and cat, I think I become aware of just how much I have to be thankful for.....even though this has been hard on this ol gal (not an easy task to move from your birthplace at the ripe old age of 56), I do indeed have much to be thankful for. We are getting ready to make a trip up to Wyoming to be the grateful guests at our 6th grandchild's birth....amazing...really...am I THAT old?!!! To have 6 grandchildren?!!! Well....I come from a long line of healthy family.....my grandma was 95 when she passed into that other world....My parents are coming up on 80 and are still riding their motorcycles and driving 10 hours to see us...so it looks like i will be around for a little longer!
I sit here and listen to the music pouring out of my first husbands macbook....i see the 3 pound dog laying atop his comfortable belly....we smell the cool breeze as it blows through our pine trees and wafts into the house that sits atop a hill and overlooks the mountains....we are coming up on one of the most important anniversaries in our lives....the one that we celebrate our trial and tears of coming through a separation....of our commitment to this love we started over 37 years ago.....we celebrate the peace that accompanies pain......yes....there is much to be thankful for on this late April evening......may you celebrate your life, with all that it entails....and be thankful.....I never in my wildest dreams thought this life would or ever COULD be mine....but it is....I am a MAJOR dreamer and now I know that some of them really do come true.....not like the Hallmark movies, or the happily ever after junk....but the dreams of the heart to be known and to know.....as John Lennon said once in a beautiful song....."Ricko (yoko) and me..and thats reality the dream is over..."

SHOVELING

You know, you can learn a lot about life from the seemingly monotonous things of everyday ...IF, and that is a very big IF, you pay attention and listen to your life. Today, as I have seemingly done at least once a week now, I went out to shovel the snow that had fallen yesterday and through the night. I enjoy the outside so very much, so this is not a job I dread, rather one that I do indeed look forward to doing! I know, that in itself should prove my insanity. Nevertheless, as I shoveled this deep and dusty snow, so many thoughts started to ramble in my head, which is not unusual for me, but it is rare that I remember them long enough to write about! These thoughts are not earth shaking, but for me, thoughts like these need to be mulled over and meditated on so that I can squeeze out of them the nectar of knowledge that seems to elude most of us most of the time. So.....what the heck ARE these thoughts I go on and on about?!! Well, they are the thoughts of silence...about the things we miss all around us because we are so busy with theTHINGS around us....the huge crow up in the tall pine that caws at me each time I wreck his silent world by the shovel scraping the ground...It seems as though the sound of it is like our "nails on a chalkboard" sound to him...because he is silent when I am and starts making racket every time my shovel does its work.
Another thought that occurred to me is that shoveling snow is like my life....the snow comes only ever so often as do the troubles and trials that come to me...the snow, like my life, must be scraped off or else when we drive across it with the cars, it turns into ice that can not be shoveled but must melt with the warmth of the day. Like my life...when these trials come, they must be dealt with in the proper way, with the proper tools, in the proper time or the traffic of my life will only make it harder to scrap the hardened parts off....and they will only go away with time and the warmth of my Son....I have learned over the 50 plus years of my life, that I better get on it asap because I KNOW what it is like and I KNOW the difficulty that it is to deal with the ICED places of my heart and of my mind...it takes twice the energy and twice the time and is twice as hard if I don't deal with them as they come....as they fall like snow on my driveway.
It is also a great time to meet neighbors whom you have not seen or do not know yet. As I was shoveling in my newly acquired neighborhood, one of my neighbors came out to shovel her drive. We talked and shoveled and talked some more about our lives...I heard her stories and she heard mine....we found we have a lot in common and it was a JOY to speak with her. That would not happen if I was not out shoveling snow... and so it is with the "neighbors" we travel life's highway with whether they live in our house, our town, go to our church or work with us...if we do not shovel our own snow by sharing our lives and hearts and troubles and trials, we will never know their thoughts or hearts or minds...perhaps we don't WANT to know and if that is the case, we are worse off than we thought! I will never forget my mother in law telling us after her husband died that as he was dying and they were sharing their last moments together, that she told Rick, that she SO wanted to just say to him "a penny for your thoughts" but never did and how she SO regretted NOT asking him that question. Sad. But we are SO like that today in SO many ways...whether out of fear, or ignorance, or rushing around, or time, or (as is the case with me) don't want to "impose", BUT we loose the opportunity to know the others that come through our lives. We don't take the time and effort to know the ones we have been given and the ones that we are given to. So...take time to shovel, to think, to clear your soul mind and heart, to know the ones our lives touch...to know yourself. And please don't wait till those driveways of your soul become iced over.....go....now.

PROCRASTINATION

You know, I am amused by this word....why does this particular word, whose meaning is not very positive, begin with the word PRO?!!!! It is not PRO to PROcrastinate!!! Anyway, all that to say that I MUST get to work on my art!!!! I have no excuses now but the ones I make up in my head....I have a specified room ready....I have it organized...I have TIME if I choose to....BUT,(and that is a big word here)...for some reason I have been putting it off. The LINK to the right of this blog titled by this same WORD, helped me today tremendously!!! So....I pass it on to you out there, whoever you may be,in blog land....perhaps it will help you in whatever area you are prone to this vile dis ease.....(yes, I meant to separate that word). I seem to be able to come up with so many excuses, reasons and virtual whinings but am realizing that it is just a matter of doing...of priority...of discipline.....all of which seem so elusive at times....BUT (there is that massive word again!) it CAN be done.....even I HAVE done it on several occasions!!! YES, it is a mind set...a habit...something to be lived and not disscused....to be grasped and not grovelled in...something to protect and not shoved back into the recesses of my life....SO, why am I even blogging about this? So that I can read it myself...remind myself...reprimand myself...reiterated to myself...regain FOR myself, the lost days and hours and minutes of sloughing off my LIFE!!! My LOVE!! My ABILITY!! To make myself accountable TO myself because in the end, that is who we are indeed accoutnable to......cheers my friends!

SO MUCH FOR THAT!!!

You know....Facebook has its good stuff, myspace too, and all the things you can "do" on each of them....but somehow, still, no one is talking!!! No one shares their heart, thoughts, moods, questions, answers, problems, laughter.....it is just a quick fix to the rapidly dying art of writing....of journaling....of having to actually take more than the few seconds (FB) to communicate the depths of your soul.....it takes TIME....EFFORT....THOUGHT....all of which are in short supply these fast paced days....SO....
I am back.....back from the land of the LOST art of speak. I enjoy this, even if no one in this entire busy world reads it! I am back for my own sanity, for my own enjoyment, for my own knowledge and growth, for a look into more than the 2 sentence space on FB and MS. Oh, they have their niche, each one of them...it just so happens that the deeper niche is here....where you must take all the above and incorporate them in your own life in order to appreciate what is said from others hearts and souls to yours...that is ...IF you are willing to listen....

The Dead

No...not the grateful dead (though I see the irony in those 2 words side by side), no peeps....looks like Ricky is right....blogs are dead it seems....my how things fly into and out of radar these days....too bad....it goes the way of the newspaper....the way of the diary or the handwritten journal....the handwritten letter that you looked forward to from your grandma or friend....yes, some deaths are slow and lengthy, but apparently not the blog....it was like a massive heart attack....taken over by the twitbookningplurk social networking thingy....and yet IS it?!! IS it really SOCIAL? Hmmm..... lets see...SOCIAL - "marked by friendly companionship with others; "a social cup of coffee"...."living together or enjoying life in communities or organized groups; "...."Inclined to seek out or enjoy the company of others; sociable."... these are only a few of the online (yes, online!) definitions....so.....see for yourself if you think these "social networks" seem indeed "social". I think they, like blogs, just make it easier NOT to be "social"....yes, they get you in contact with people you would not otherwise be in contact with, but do you truly socialize? Do you know about these friends of yours in a deeper way? Do you understand their hearts any clearer? Hard to do unless it is a slower time of face to face contact or at the least a decent phone conversation......conversation, facial expressions, body language, tears, anger, unbelief, not listening, the heart felt touch of another.....all this and more, lack in today's way of socializing....too bad.....we all miss out by going this direction.... and yet, to do or be otherwise, is not to be "up to date" with the times.....and for what.....so that we can be connected to people we don't really know or have time to really care about? So that we are connected with some tweet from someone or some entity that we get "news" from? And the thing is, is that it is "news" that we just belly ache about getting ANYWAY!!! The world is full of this madness.....so? So, step outside the tech box and into your neighbors yard.....into your friends or familes hearts....into the grocery store and the clerks day....bring some real sunshine to real people in this ever changing but real life that we supposedly "live".....me? I will keep writing here and there and everywhere....why? because I enjoy the art of it. Me? I will walk next door to talk to the old man taking care of his 93 year old mom and try to brighten his day or offer help. Me? I will cook for the friend who can't because she is sick. Me? I will look into the eyes of the people I come in contact with today and let them know there is light out here in this sometimes dark and care LESS world that seems to be so wrapped up in its own technology. Nothing wrong with it....I am using it NOW!!! But watch out.....it can take the place of truly knowing someone....of truly speaking your heart to a breathing living person....it can replace what is true and right and down your own road everyday in the EYES of the people you pass by or look away from as you send your IM/TWEET/FACEBOOKING important texts.....as I point the finger at the world at large, 4 other fingers MUST point back at myself.....yes, I see that hand...er finger.....nope, I won't stop blogging, as a matter of fact, I have 2! One for the ones who want to KNOW me and those who want to know ABOUT me. Whether they are read or not, or taken interest in or not, whether anyone freakin cares or not, is NOT the point....the point....to speak my heart....to listen to others replies, to spark thought and conversations with those I DO care about.....Take the good and leave the rest.....
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)