Measure your life in love

I saw a Mother’s Day quiz on Facebook that asked you to describe your mother in one word. That would be easy for me. I would describe my mother as “LOVE”. A year ago, my mother was struggling to survive during her last week of her life. The experience of the last four months of her life and her eventual death was the most traumatic of my life. It was full of every emotion a person can endure and yet it was also full of many blessings and lessons. The most important lesson was that while we are here on earth we should love one another, when we pass from this life our soul lives on and our love remains. The song “Seasons of Love” from Rent comes to mind and I wanted to share the lyrics in today’s blog post:

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets

In midnights, in cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure, a year in the life?

How about love?

How about love?

How about love?

Measure in love

Seasons of love(love)

Seasons of love(love)

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned

Or in times that he cried

In bridges he burned or the way that she died

It's time now, to sing out

Though the story never ends

Let's celebrate

Remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the love

(Oh, you got to, you got to remember the love)

Remember the love

(You know that love is a gift from up above)

Remember the love

(Share love, give love, spread love)

Measure in love

(Measure, measure your life in love)

Seasons of love

Seasons of love

(Measure your life, measure your life in love)

Lenten Sabbatical

I am taking a Lenten sabbatical from Facebook and my blog. My daughter will be home for Spring Break soon and besides spending time with her, I am taking time for me. I have plans of reading, crafting and playing with my brand new camera. See you all again in April!

Believe in yourself!

As we all know, most of what we believe in exists only in our heads. Most times we create the drama that we wish to avoid. We let fear overcome us and mixed with anxiety creates a recipe for disaster. When people exercise their body, they do it first for health, but also for flexibility and longevity. Yet while working on the body, they tend to forget to also work on the mindset. We hold onto the thinking that was passed onto us by our parents and grandparents or by experiences we had when we were children. While there are wonderful memories mixed in all that, we tend to emphasize on what was negative. Those are the thought processes that we need to re-write as we get older. What if we all took the negative and proved the haters wrong? Unfortunately, most times it is what holds us back because we start to believe it. Take the child who was told they would amount to nothing. No matter how successful that now adult may become, they may still feel the sting of that comment their whole life and always feel like a failure. Or how about the child who was called fatty by a relative then grows up to have body image issues and even after diets and surgeries still calls herself “fatty”. We cannot erase what has been instilled in us, nor can we stop people from being nasty to us in our lives. We can, however, retrain our brain to stop believing those negative thoughts. It is not about becoming conceited, but more like believing in yourself when everyone else doesn’t. We were all put here on earth to learn and live to our potential. We can’t let others determine what our potential is because that is not living authentically. When we finally reach our moment of truth and realize our true worth, then we can believe in ourselves. Let the positive voice you listen to be your own and believe it!

Kindness is a gift that has no boundaries

As Aesop said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” When my sweet mother passed away last May, we asked in her obituary that people perform a random act of kindness in her honor as she was the kindest person we ever knew. In today’s world when the headlines alone can make one shudder there is something we can do. It doesn’t have to be on a grandiose scale. It can be something small and simple. But an act of kindness, no matter what the size can have a tremendous impact and cause a ripple effect of kindness throughout the universe. I am a firm believer in the “Pay it Forward” mentality. I believe that what you do comes back to you tenfold…I would rather the tenfold be of kindness and good instead of the alternative. Days are long, but life is short. Be kind to someone every day and you will be the change that we all want to see in the world! Start today and start right now!

Under the Big Top of Facebook

Step right up! Come one…Come all to the media circus known as Facebook! I tend to have a love/hate relationship with social media. As with most things, there is the good, the bad and the ugly. I feel that the only good aspect of Facebook is that I have the ability to keep in touch with folks from all aspects of my life in one format. With family living all over the world, this is a wonderful thing. That being said, there are countless bad aspects of Facebook that come along with the positive. From the constant notifications, invites to play games and/or “like” pages and friend requests it becomes a full-time job just to manage your Facebook page. Then there is the presumption that your Facebook friends are real friends. Sorry, but if we only communicate on Facebook, you are an acquaintance that I know from my life. A real friend maintains a relationship outside of Facebook and when we need each other, we show up on each other’s doorstep. As far as the ugly side of Facebook, there are the people that use Facebook as a sounding board for arguments or as an emotional diary. You know the ones I mean. There is an angry post and then an argument ensues so by the 100th comment when everybody is posting their opinion on the situation, the person who originally posted it deletes the post. Mind you, like 200 people already saw it, but yes please delete the post. The audacity some people have in their posts or comments amazes me. They say things they would not dare say in public, but have no problem putting it on the internet. Let us not forget the “selfie” pics. Yes, I want to see your pics of you enjoying your life…but the pics of you in your car or in front of your bathroom mirror…not so much…ugh! There is always one person on your friend list that feels the need to “like” and comment on everything you post. Sigh! Lastly, there are those that are just voyeurs perusing the Facebook world. They send you a friend request and then they are never to be heard from at all. Facebook is truly a media circus. You can enjoy the show for the most part. However, there will always be clowns and freaks and if you follow elephants and monkeys, be careful where you step!

Art is more than a hobby to me

I heard an artist once say that her creations were how she processed what was happening in her life. I find this so incredibly true. Art has always been a part of my life and much more than a hobby. My art serves such a cathartic purpose in my life. It centers me. When I am stressed, anxious and overwhelmed, my art is like yoga for my brain. It challenges me, it allows me to express and it comforts me. I am not into repetitive art such as knitting or crocheting, although I can see where that type of repetitiveness can also be calming. For me it raises my anxiety levels to places I do not want them to be. I enjoy art with an edge or lack thereof. I enjoy art that allows a freedom of choice, not following the rules and seeing an end result that is better than you could have imagined. I love mixed media. The combination of different things combined to make a beautiful piece is so definitive of how I view my life. What would life be if I didn’t have the fantastic memories alongside the sort of icky ones. It is the combination of the perfect with the imperfect that makes it amazing. When I scrapbook, I don’t just journal about the good memories and the good photographs. I document all of it. I want to remember all of it. This is my story and I want my grandchildren to know who I am through my art. Poetry and creative writing are another form of art for me. It is something that literally pours out of me, figuratively speaking of course. I rarely edit and rewrite my writing because I feel that is not how life works. Life isn’t perfect. Moment to moment let it flow. And if it ends up on a canvas, a piece of paper, or a blog on the internet then so be it. Art colors every part of my existence and I cannot imagine my life without it!

Hello January!

January, oh how I love January…well not for the below zero temperatures, but for what it represents to me which is “Organize Me month! The beginning of the year always means a fresh start. Surviving the rush of the holiday season, I like to start the year by going through the house and organizing what we keep and what will go. Call it pre-spring cleaning. I am sometimes amazed at the things in my house that I come across, like why do we have five garden shovels when we hate to garden in the first place? Other times I wonder what happened since the last time I saw that item since it seems like years! Sometimes it feels as though I am on an archeological dig, finding either treasure or yucky stuff…lol. Either way, it gives me the opportunity to keep moving forward. My husband is of the mindset of “we might need that one day” and I am more like “de-clutter and only keep what we need now”. Somewhere in the middle of both of our thought processes lies what remains in the house. I do feel less anxious when I know what I have, where it is located and if I need to get more. Also prepping ahead for the coming seasons, alleviates most of my stress and leaves me time to enjoy life. So as we prepare for tax season, the hopes of spring breezes replacing artic blasts and the thoughts of green landscapes instead of brown snow fill our minds. Hello January…glad you are here!