“Count Your Blessings”

A Josh Groban medley of lyrics made into a “found” poem written to reflect the fear and anxiety about loosing our home – of course it helps if you love Josh!  “Count your blessings” was the last advice my grandfather gave me our last night together before he died of lymphoma.  If he could count his blessings fighting cancer, I can count mine no matter what is happening in my life.

 

“Count Your Blessings…”

 

My forever Love 

Weeping

Fly me up to where you are beyond the distant star

A Secret Place

Don’t Give Up

Because you want to be heard

A Splendor in the light,

The sun on your skin, (my child)

Rest your wings my butterfly

Everybody wants to be understood

Everybody wants to be loved

I feel you all around me

Believe

It’s Now or Never

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

We were Dreamers not so long ago

Magic slipped away

Believe in what your heart is telling

Isn’t Faith believing all power can’t be seen?

Somedays we forget to look around us

Somedays we can’t see the joy that surrounds us

For tonight we pray for what we know can be –

It’s up to us to be the change

There’s so much to be thankful for

Each of us must find our truth

 

“Count you blessings”

Compiled by Mel

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Poetry to think on…

in honor of Mother  Poem A Day: from Poets.org

Academy of American Poets <poetnews@poets.org>

I found the poem to at first turn me off, not what I expected to something truly thought provoking and intriguing.  I love the last stanza especially.Mother
by Herman de Coninck
translated by Kurt Brown & Laure-Anne Bosselaar

What you do with time
is what a grandmother clock
does with it: strike twelve
and take its time doing it.
You’re the clock: time passes,
you remain. And wait.

Waiting is what happens to
a snow-covered garden,
a trunk under moss,
hope for better times
in the nineteenth century,
or words in a poem.

For poetry is about letting things
grow moldy together, like grapes
turning into wine, reality into preserves,
and hoarding words
in the cellar of yourself.

With Spring and Sun comes…

…the need for fewer clothes covering the body.  Having already begun the cleaving of pounds process, I needed to address my body image.  Most of the time I hide in large sizes thinking I look better than exposing my curves to the general public.  Wrong…I watch the shows that give women makeovers, the Oprah shows on looking your best no matter what your size, etc.  I now only own one or two black outfits and have fallen in love with scarves, 3/4 sleeves (oldie but a goody), and bright colors in flattering solids or “non-expanding” designs.  I’m willing to stop wearing tents but polka dots and horizontal lines are for more slender people, they do nothing but make me look larger.  Jackets, jean or otherwise, with curve appeal – not boxy and square but slightly fitted, are my saving grace.  I can wear something sleeveless but don’t feel undressed or exposed and my lumps are covered but my curves are accentuated.

To top it all off, I started my own Arbonne business.  A few weeks ago I blogged about my friend’s business and how wonderful the Arbonne skin care system felt.  It was so good I had to join her team and spread the word.  Since it is more beneficial than any product I  ever tried in my life, and that’s a lot, I felt a desire to be a part of the company.  In a sense the Arbonne opportunity was presented to me at a time when it was actually an answer to my prayers.  How lucky I am to not only begin getting younger looking skin but to be making money helping others do the same as well!

There are baby/children and mens products that I have just begun to use from Arbonne as well as a weight loss system that I thought I’d try with a before and after picture of myself.

 If you’d like a sample and want more information, check out suissebeaute.myarbonne.com

Email – SwissSkye@myarbonne.com

Happy Birthday William Shakespeare!

William Shakespeare (approx. April 23)
 1564-1616 

Some of my favorite  words to live by:
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

Hamlet (III, iii)

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
 

Consider the Hands..

…begins the poem Consider the Hands that Write This Letter
by Aracelis Girmay (poetnews@poets.org)

Which leads to all sorts of stories.  I always liked the country song about Daddy’s hands because it made me think of my grandfather’s big gnarled hands that so gently held my hand, taught me to drive the tractor, and made such beautiful pieces of furniture.  Arthritis had made them nearly immobile in many ways but it never stopped him from participating in life to the fullest.  He taught me to always count my blessings and I do as I consider his hands…

Glorious Sunshine!

…there is a morning after…we go from freezing temperatures, no power, breath condensing from our mouths in the living room (I’m getting a generator next year)straight into summer!  I’m not complaining.  The cat is languishing by the open front door bathed in warm sunlight.  She’s got that pampered cat stance going on with the occasional flick of the tail tip.  Ahh,  it’s a cats life indeed (said with a George Sanders voice).

On days like this, all dreams are possible.  May everyone be on the mend today and the healing begin in earnest.

Thought for a Monday

…or any day to remind us that we become what we think…

“Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself.”
                                       — Sara Henderson

Culture Shock

My husband turns 50 tomorrow.  It will be my turn in another two years.  No big deal.  He opted out of a major bash for one of a more intimate size with children invited.  So far so good.  We just moved to Maine from California so this gives us an opportunity to have all our new friends over to toast the milestone in our new home.  Beautiful. 

Normally my husband is the chef.  He is a talented cook and pastry chef as it was once his career.   Now cooking is his hobby so putting together his own party would be fun and a “piece of cake.”  I certainly didn’t argue since even the way he displays the cheese on a platter is picturesque.  Then I thought about his birthday cake.  Having him bake his own cake just wasn’t acceptable.  Normally I’d just call one of the many excellent bakeries in the area to have a German Chocolate Cake ready and waiting but that was in Monterey, California where there was an extraordinary bakery on every corner.  I knew of only one option and called that bakery feeling sure they would be able to come up with a suitable selection.  Unfortunately they were closed and not for just the day but for good.  Other than the grocery store, there weren’t any local bakeries closer than 40 minutes away so, it was up to me, yikes.  I rarely cook.  After meeting my husband, there wasn’t any need for me to keep cooking so I didn’t.  Now I would need to bake a German Chocolate Cake from scratch.  It’s like riding a bike right? 

Well the kitchen is currently covered in chocolate batter and the cake pans are filled and in the oven.  Phew.  I will tackle one part of the cake at a time…freeze the cakes and ice them tomorrow if all goes well.  Cross your fingers!  Oh, and my husband decided it would be nice to have the cake with our guests instead of with just the family so it needs to be good!

Oh, and, I wouldn’t trade our new life for all the bakeries in the world.

Not So Distant Memory

The year was 2001 at 8:15 in the morning sometime during my maternity leave.

     How quiet this morning breaks, your breaths inaudible except for the gentle rise of the soft pink quilt wrapped around your tiny self.  The diffused light glows around your profile illuminating your round perfect cheeks and rosebud mouth.  Your arms sprung, palms up, sleeping in secure slumber.  My dearest baby girl how I love you so my heart aches with desire and hope for your future.  How hard it is to not gather you into my arms and hold you close drinking  your warmth into my very soul  – stopping the rapt passage of time if only for that brief blessed moment. – Mommy

Mystery of Self Revealed…

…or at least slightly unveiled.  In my previous post I discussed an article by Gail Blanke that caught my attention because I had just dumped (or at least tried to dump) an emotional behavior that was ultimately debilitating.  I declared to my long suffering husband that I would take my body shape and size as it was from this day forward instead of beating myself up over the ground lost in just one year of inconsistent behavior (He’s thinking, “Eureka!”).  Of course in my head, I have been comparing changes in my body all of my life.  As with most women, my body never added up to my expectations.  More over, I never added up to my expectations much to my husband’s chagrin.  So the timely discovery of an article that has people start with their physical clutter in order to clear the “load” for even greater emotional clutter, gave my actions validation.  It’s true.  Cleaning house, weeding out closets, putting stacks of mail and junk in order, creates a feeling of freedom to then be able to deal with even deeper “clutter”. 

My plan of action is to clean and toss room by room and count as I go.  The reason behind writing down the items, according to Gail, is to be able to experience that feeling of declutter-ization in the future.  Thus lifting weight from shoulders that are locked to the ears…I have to remind myself frequently to drop my shoulders from my ears it’s amazing how they creep up there without my noticing…