Faith, Trust and Dreams



     One time...(that's how a grand daughter always starts her tales)...
     One time, there was a boy with a dream.
     The first dream. 
     This young man's dream was with him for as long as he could remember. Some thought is to grand a dream for such a boy, and the lad began to listen to them, rather than the dream that whispered in his young heart. While he held this secret dream in his heart, he never told anyone about it, for fear they would continue telling him, 'It is to grand a dream, for your young country boy heart'.
     Years passed, as years tend to do and the boy became a young man, while the dream had been pushed back so much, and for so long, it was barely able to find room, even in the furthest corner of his mind. However that dream managed to find a secluded spot, not quit at the back, but neither was it midway. There the little dream settled in to wait to be remembered. 
     Again the years passed, as they tend to do, when we are to busy making a living and forgetting to live. Children now grown, with children of their own. The first dream was still patiently waiting to be remembered.
     Lest you think the little dream just sat quietly all these years, I must tell you, it did not. No. It wiggled every chance it got, to no avail.
     Then one quiet day, the sun shining warmly overhead, a warm summer breeze gently blew through the pile of once lively dreams, that had been collecting over the years. Where this particular little dream had waited the longest and tried the hardest to be noticed and recalled.
     Today, it was going to give it it's all.
     Today, it would get the, now man's, attention or settle in to a corner way at the back of his mind never to stir again.
     Gathering courage, the little dream waited, listened and watched. There it was! The smell of fresh mown lawn drifted into the man's slumbering subconsciousness, ruffling everything in the forgotten dream's pile, lifting and sifting them around like leaves on a fitful Fall wind, some settled back into place, but not the first dream.
     No.
     The first dream hung on to the smell, as it wafted off to awaken the man from his lawn chair revere, and before you know it, slam! Right to the front of the man's mind, the little dream crashed unceremoniously, hanging on for dear life!
     It started out slow, because the man remembered the times his boy self, was told to forget that first dream, but neither of them let go of the awakening.
     Year's again slipped by, but not nearly as many as could have, when the now mature dream, no longer sat quietly waiting to be noticed, but rather it had been banging pans and blowing whistles every time the man paused.
     At last the man agreed with the dream, it was time to once again broach the subject of the first dream to a new audience.
     Wife.
     She was different from those long ago voices.
     Because she too had dreams that needed to come to light, so she encouraged the dream, and the man.
     Yes! 
     The first dream had a ring leader!
     The man found that with encouragement and faith, he not only could, but would, give that first dream life...

     Faith is knowing one of two things will happen:

There will be something to stand on or

You will be taught to fly!

I Look At Clouds

Yesterday I saw this cloud, just sort of hanging there in the sky, it made me think of ...like a zillion things.

 It looks like a heart...And that made me think of all the people I love, and all the people that love me. Gives a warm fuzzy to think about those things.

They also looked like angel wings...And that made me think of all the people I know and love who have died. Long ago and recently. It also made me think of all the people in my life who are Angel's to me.  But best of all it reminded me that when one pair of our own wings wears out, if we look around we can find a spare pair.

The way it hung, suspended and apart from the other's, its density, strength and fragility reminded me of each of us.
How often do we feel like we don't fit in, like we may not have anything in common with other's or that no one understands the particular place we are at in life. Like gray day's. Suspended in our different life experiences.
Other times we may feel at the top of our game, strong and confident.
Possibly we feel as fragile as a dissipating cloud formation...

Yes.
This cloud sort of hanging there, made me think of like...a zillion things.

What A Load Of Crap

Why do we do things that have a tendency to load our crap into the back's of other people truck's of life?

Why can't we just deal with our own crap, and give them the opportunity to do the same?

Because just maybe, the crap we are trying to unload into their truck, isn't even partly their crap. Maaaaybe, we think that our crap is really their crap taking upon ourselves the misguided assumption that it's our responsibility to let them know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are bothered by the crap we think that they should have in copious amounts. And yet they have the unmitigated gall to think they have a truck loaded with treasures instead of crap.

Then there are the folks who think they need to put crap into the back's of some other person's truck because the ones who's crap it really is...doesn't think it is. And the one who's crap they think it is, just doesn't seem to be thinking that it is their load to carry, and they are not doing a good enough job of loading their own truck  with crap. So help, they feel they must.

Then again, there are the ones who feel a family member or loved one, has somehow been slighted, so they feel the overbearing or overprotecting need to rectify what they see as a problem, and load er up! They may not know the details, but they don' t let that bother them, or slow them down.
Oh no! There is crap to be dumped and they have every intention of dumping as much as they can, as fast as they can...hang the fact that they could be mistaken in their assumptions.

Sometimes, I know it's hard to believe.
I hardly recognize it in myself. 
But I have to admit that I am the one doing said copious amounts of crap dumping.

Heaven forbid!

Not me! Says you.

Yes we all dump crap into each others truck's as we go through life, maybe intentionally, maybe ignorantly, but dump we do.

I have noticed that I have these various loads piling up in my life. The back of the truck of my life is getting full to overflowing...So I will be taking some time to sort through the crap that other people have dumped upon my little old truck. I will sort through the crap that isn't mine to deal with, separating it from the crap that is mine to deal with, doing my best to get it where I can manage it. The crap I can't do a blessed thing about? I will take to the dump leaving it there for the seagulls to deal with. The crap that is mine to work through? I will try to get arranged into the back of the truck of my life, and see if I can't turn that crap into treasures as soon as I can.

If I have ever dumped crap into the truck bed of your life, I sincerely apologize. And please know, that I will do my best to refrain from any future dumpings, trying only to bring treasures to the heavy laden truck you are lumbering with through life.

Fragile Lives

Life is fragile.

We all hear it said when someone close to us departs this life.

I wonder why it takes a death for us to look at our lives, taking them less for granted for a while, at least.

Life flies on gossamer wings...

Death is no respecter of person's, it is no respecter of age, it is no respecter of plans...

I received the phone call yesterday morning that has a way of dropping the bottom out for a while...
My oldest brother was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer in mid-October 2010. He passed peacefully away, surrounded by his family Sunday night.

I stand in a line that is shortening.
Both my parents have died causing the line to shorten to their children. And that line is shortening now...
"It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth-and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up-that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had."    Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

I plan to do just that. To live each day, the today's and tomorrows, as if they were my last. I hope to grab life by the horns and make some wonderfully delicious memories...

Meet my amazing brother here.

manure

     Tucked away in tool shed's along with rakes are corners filling with Spring dreams. Like me, are they bustin at the seams to have these Spring rains slow and the warm sun come out for longer stretches?

      I wish we had crocus, buttercups, and other early Spring flower's pushing up to reach the warming ray's of the sun.  New leaves are beginning to show on the tree's and bushes, orchards soon will need pruning.

     Like the growing need to get outside and spruce up the yard.
     I've had the blaring realization that I need to hurry and take care of some inner 'yard work'.
I've been lining up a few of the bulbs and things I want to plant as well as spruce up, but in searching for a good rake, to reach into the corners, I ran smack dab into a big ol pile of...crap, that has got to be spread out so it can dissipate.
     To be scattered in various directions and be cultivated into the rich soils of my life.
     To help me promote or improve my life, to help me grow and develop a better character, better behavior and personality traits, that I feel compelled to plant and nurture in the garden's and landscape of my life.
     Its true that manure helps fertilize and make the dirt of gardens more productive...
     It is also true that the crap that happens if life, can render our lives more productive, if we are willing to wade through the smell and bitterness to get it spread out and deal with what we can, toss out the parts we can't and learn to know the difference...

     So pardon me while on this rainy day I go take care of a few things that will help my life bloom in its time.

Sacred Grounds

I went for a walk the other day when there was a beautiful break in the weather. It was nothing short of blissful out!

The sun shining, the warmth of a rejuvenating breeze drifting lazily about the town, seemed to carry me to the best place in town to walk...the cemetery.

To me it is sacred ground, because therein lay six or more generations of my family. From my earliest years it has been a place of memories and togetherness. Memorial Day was HUGE when I was growing up, it was often the day to have family reunions, because everyone traveled from their corners of the world, to meet at the cemetery with flowers and lunch fixin's.

We were taught cemetery educate and manners, right along with respect for the living and the dead, at a  very young...

We were taught respect about a lot of things when I was a kid...

The Pledge Of Allegiance was recited every morning in school, as we stood and placed our hand over our heart. And when the colors were seen in parade's we stood the same way.

The other day I was at an event where an Honour Guard had been invited to present and post the colors. As they stood at attention just inside the door's while everyone filed in to find a seat, I had the opportunity to stand as they began the ceremony and my heart filled with the same swelling pride that it did when I was a little girl...
I draw strength from my family who lie in that sacred ground, and from seeing the flag of the land that I love, fluttering like a guard watching over the diversified groups of walkers and visitors...

I'm glad I was taught this respect at an early age.

Even more so for those who through quiet acts of respect...were the teachers. 

Pinning High Hopes On The Weather

You know when your ready for something to change and it just seems to take forever ?

I'm like that.

I am ready for something to just "give". I thought if the snow would just melt...

Everything would change with it.
All the heart wrenching things of life would just stop. At least for a while. Things would change and I would find myself doing ok, even without the new haircut I can't really decide on.
The snow has melted, trees are showing the first signs of budding, most day's are warm and when a storm does blow through it brings rain now...
Rain is good. It is a change. I love its smell and sounds. But it didn't bring the changes I had been hoping for.
Oh it isn't the rains fault. Its doing the best it can to bring changes to the world I live in. But unfortunately it can't reach into all the corners of my life, that I wish, could have the winter type build up of sludge washed from even the tiniest cracks.
Now I'm wondering if the sun will bring the changes I'm hoping and praying for?
Not all the changes I'm wishing for are for me. No. Many are for the people I love. The friends and family I see struggling, with the things life is piling on them...like sand and salt build up from a long hard winters road.
I wish a good spring rain could wash the pains and troubles from their lives as easily as it washes the world down for the new things Spring can bring.


I guess I pin high hopes on the weather...

All The Painful Salt Flats



Don't question when the answer is already in your heart. Just smile and share your answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



What if the answer isn't there? Then where do you go???
 
good question.... I can tell you I have not always had the answers but grateful for those that are willing to sit with me while we find them.
 
Good that you have those people.
 
like I said I am grateful for those that are willing cause I also know what it is like to sit in the darkness.
 
 
 
     It might be that you...or someone you know...feels like they are in the darkest of darkness, a deep rut and can't seem to get out. Others are so lost inside that they struggle just go through the motions of being alive, just hoping to get through the next minute~or five minutes~let alone the whole day! Many things can seem to have you painfully trapped in plain view...
 
     You...or someone you know... might be wondering why someone, anyone, doesn't notice?! Wondering if you stood and screamed ~ would anyone take notice? It may be a pleading silent scream to the Universe at large~begging for something... even a miracle!
 
     Once upon a time there was a woman child who's life had brought her many internal wounds, she was so shredded, lost and directionless that she could only go through the motions thinking that she could not let anyone know, convinced that no one cared.  She likened her life to being in the Utah Salt Flats in a tornado. The tiny salt granules, that can strip the paint off a car, filleting her to the bone. Stinging her eyes to the point that she couldn't even bear to open them, always seeming to cause them to leak tears of frustration, anger, resignation, then ultimately defeat.
     She couldn't find any direction, looking up she prayed to see the sky. It wasn't to be found.
     Begging, screaming silently at the Heavens for some kind of help. A path or trail, the glimpse of a star...something...anything... to give her a hope not to give up or give in to the dispare she was feeling....
     Then one day there was a thought that tickled her mind, a thin silver thread brushed across her face from somewhere in the swirling, pelting, stinging white, salt. Trying many times to get hold of the hairlike thread, the direction of its origin unknown. Eventually gripping it tightly between her thumb and index finger she sat very still.
It wasn't much.
But it was enough.
     She sat like that for what seemed like forever, wondering if that little silver thread in all that white could possibly be the thing she had been begging the Heavens for?
Taking no chances she clung. 
     Eventually she noticed that it didn't matter what direction it was coming from for now, it was ok to use it to guide her out of the pain she was lost in...gripping it more tightly she stood, gathering hope in that tiniest of helps, she looked up. And there it was!! The lightest shade of baby blue sky! Just a flash. The threads connection was from that direction. She gathered all her strength, taking a big breath, she lifted a foot and took the tiniest of baby steps...it was all she could do...and it was enough. 
     She didn't know where that precious thread would take her, but in that small, and fleeting glimpse, she now knew it was a thread of hope from the Heaven's...
     And she dared to trust the unseen, to trust the strength of that tiny silver thread of hope...
 
     The woman child had wondered why no one seemed to notice her painful predicament? She felt she couldn't have asked anyone for help, after all who would she ask to help? How could she ask for help, when she wasn't even fully aware of what help she craved and needed herself? She wasn't even sure if others would understand! Surly other peoples lives couldn't possibly be this painful! No one else could possibly feel this lost and hopeless...could they?
 
 
     That was over ten years ago...
 
     Yes. There are many of us stranded in our own Salt Flats. Fighting our own Jabberwalkies...and yes. We have to find our own way's and our own intestinal fortitude to take the babiest of steps of hope.
     It is also true that there are people, places and things that can help you learn to recognize helps that may seem like dangling silver threads in the vast whiteness...
     It is also true that even if we feel we are not worthy of any kind of anything, or that there is no one Heavenward that wants to to listen, or can help...I promise you. There is.
     As a woman child who has survived an extended stay in a tornado filled Salt Flat, I invite you to grasp hope. Even if you at first think it is just a hair tickling and irritating you... 
 
     Just dare to hope that help might come, could come, will come...baby steps after all, in reality, are great strides!
  

The Little Robin

The first Robin of spring!!

Life and weather...
They really do have more in common than we often think.
For instance, weather can be balmy, warm, and refreshing. Or harsh, sub-zero, and leave you snowed in for lengthy periods of time.

Many of us are beginning to dread pulling the morning curtain's aside, never knowing what will greet us. Will it be frigid blue skies, rain clouds settled in so snugly they kiss the valley floor's, or more snow piled up than you have seen from a fast lake effect storm in years?

At the same time many of us may dread waking up in the morning. The thoughts of having to look out a window are incomprehensible!
I heard a song recently that got me to thinking, the line that grabbed my attention with both hands was that we are all one phone call from our knees.

One phone call...or one choice...or one decision, from having a glacier bury you. The floor you thought was firmly under you is in a flash...just gone.

We know that the weather comes in seasons, each bringing good and bad climates. We should also know that life is...exactly the same...only a little bit different.

Forrest Gump told us life is like a box of chocolates, "you never know what your gonna get."  While we are in the cruddy parts of life it's often hard for us to envision it changing for the better, to find a glimmer of hope for something good to return...only better.

Then one day we pull back the curtain on the window, or our life, and we glimpse the tiny bird sitting on top of the tree through the block, when what to our pleasant surprise we see the first Robin on Spring...and we know once again, that just because we can't see the end to everything right now...it is coming...

The snow's will melt into the heat of pleasant Summer day's, just as the problem's we may be struggling through the middle of, will one day be viewed from the other side, and we will be able once again to see our Spring bringing Robins...


If you are in need of a Robin's encouragement to get you through the last days of winter, or to give you that little spot of hope in your life...I share with you this first little bird of paradise for hope today.

Interesting...

Do you ever find yourself wishing for a more interesting life?

I confess that every now and then I do.

I get tired of doing laundry and dishes, I get tired of waiting for my non-existent house elf to appear, and that darned bathroom fairy has been an epic fail...and that leaves me with all the day in- day out 'stuff'.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, along with everyone I do my job for...its just that sometimes...I might be found asking if something could come along that might be a little out of the ordinary?

Something to make me stop and scratch my head and take notice?

Then it happens...

A routine drive through the winter bleak canyon has Honey and I looking out at the same snow and mud dappled landscape we have seen for...well, all our lives...then it happens!

A change!

Honey: "Oh look, they moved the Moose."

Me: "No they didn't, that one moved."

Honey: "Are you sure?"

Me: "Yep. There's the wooden one."

Honey: "Sure is. Its not often you see a Moose in this canyon." He muses as he continues steadily on the way.

Me: "Turn around and let me take some pictures of it?!"

Honey: " Are you sure? Right here?...well...huhgh (I don't quite know how to spell that sound he always makes)."

Today isn't the day he suddenly starts slamming on the breaks so I can jump out and take pictures, but headway is made as he reluctantly turns and miss shutterbug starts snapping away...

After meeting up with a pastel of people for breakfast, plans are made and off we go for muckie weather entertainment.

Incognito exercise, better known as a lot of laughs, and a ton of fun, with most of the same gaggle of breakfasters, off wii go bowling the afternoon away.

Even when your in the house I think it's a good thing to look out the window's now and again. Simply because you may miss an interesting diversion...

After all, you never really know where, or how, the hum-drum may be changed up by a little-glimpsing of a rare Moose on a routine drive through the canyon or watching a bird dog sitting on a bush? 

I guess he needed a change too.



So if you get like me (and apparently Teddy), feeling the need for something interesting to happen, a change, on bleak dragging not quite spring day's, it might just be as easy as looking out your window's...or...teaching yourself to climb a really big bush.

One thing I do know is, I better rethink which camera I use as my 'grab n go' . (0.o)

Snow Bird

     We had another big February snow a couple of day's ago.

     This one was a hum-dinger! I think it dropped the most snow of the entire season in a short time.

It was obvious if it melted off by itself it would be a long time coming, especially since the last storms remnants were still thick, frozen, and extremely solid under the new depths.

     Shovels were retrieved from the patio's recess's, once more being brought into action. It was much easier to motivate myself to get out there and get after it, after the sun brightened view from the front window showed the kindness of neighbors who had been compassionate enough to shovel the very front walk before I rousted myself out of bed.

     I got a good amount...for me...done before reinforcements arrived.

     I really could not have done it without our young friend's strength, and determination!

     Once the front shoveling was done, we voted that the rest really could melt off.

     Out back we trudged to view the playground of Busy Momma and Tiny Dancer. I took pity on Honey's plight of being at work and noticing the slide of the snows from the tin roof of his man cave/garage I cleared a single line out as far as I could for him, when I noticed this weird sight...

     We have had an influx of birds returning, but I have never seen anything like this before...did the poor bird fall? Was it taking a polar bear plunge? Was it a flying fish that was a long-long way off base?

     With no other signs around than what is pictured, it will be put down on the long time mystery list.

How is that for a good end of season snowstorm and mystery? I'm good with it!