New Year...New Word

   

 Well with 2015 ending in a whirlwind, I find that I truly am blessed, which I already knew.  Last year we did not get to celebrate the holiday season due to a tragic illness with my daughter, which almost took her precious life.  We are grateful each and every day that she is now well and we made a good time of it this year, checking things off of her bucket list, like standing in 3 states at once on New Year's Eve day, playing the lottery with the numbers from a fortune cookie, right up until New Year's Day when she pulled out a roman candle to set off at midnight!  SWEET!

And now, as the days roll on into 2016, I find myself flustered at all the hoopla that went into decorating, cooking, baking, etc, for the Christmas season.  Mostly trying to find things that have gone by the wayside while running around like a nut to train stations and airports to drop off and retrieve the "littles" who are all grown up now with lives of their own away from the homestead!

I NEED ORDER IN MY LIFE!

And since it has all come and gone in the blink of an eye, I do not want to take it all down and pack it all back up again.  It's just too pretty.  But it is time.  It is time to pare down. 

So, my word and mission for this New Year 2016 is SIMPLIFY!  

I have wood burned it into a piece of cedar shake snagged from the Little World's Fair and I have begun the process.  Keep it simple...keep it real!

IT'S ALL GOOD!

Hanging out with Kara today, who has the Spirit of Simplicity down...stop by to say "HELLO"!

Hope Springs Eternal

  "The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring."

-Bern Williams

Well, Spring is finally making its way to the Northeast.  It has been a very long winter and I am thrilled to see Mother Nature doing her job and forcing new growth to transform the dull, brown winter dregs to the softly colored inspirational peeks that only Spring can provide! 

 

When we think of Springtime, we automatically believe the best is yet to come.  We are hopeful. There is a powerful force at play here.  We believe that the blue sky will always be there when we look up.  Sure, the clouds will come, and with them the rains, and if we are lucky, a rainbow will grace us with its own gift of beauty and wonder... but the sky remains all around us, blue or not.

"Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems."

-  Rainer Maria Rilke

 Spring helps us to see the good in people.  For when the daylight hours are extended, people are more cheerful. They find hope in their own meanderings wherever they may lead.  Perhaps one may be inclined to perform a simple random act of kindness, prompted by a gentle smile or a kind word from a friend.  Or better yet, from a stranger.  Stranger things have happened...

As for me, this Spring is providing me with a rejuvenation or a reawakening of spirit that has gone through a tumultuous turn of events these past couple months. For a truth has come to light, and while I have been in some sort of denial of this "bigger than life" truth, it continues to gnaw at the very essence of my soul.   

It is simply new found knowledge that I must seek to find a purpose for.  For even though it is not something I can act on, and even though this new found knowledge really changes nothing at all, it has affected me in such a way that my only choice is to try to extract something positive from it.  Perhaps the brighter days of Springtime will reveal a brighter purpose or meaning for me.

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when 
there's no help in truth!

-SOPHOCLES, Oedipus Rex