Mother Nature's Gift

One of the things that I love about my home is the outside gardens that we are able to enjoy year round. I have talked about my hydrangea gardens that bloom in the spring and bless us with an amazing bounty of blooms from March through sometimes as late as November. We also have many other beautiful flowering trees and shrubs that bloom at varying times during the year.

You would think that winter would be lacking in beautiful things to look at as most flowering trees and shrubs are in hibernation; however, I have found that a winter garden brings it's own unique beauty.

I have talked of our coral bark maple whose bark is the most brilliant color of red in the winter months and our yellow twig dogwood whose limbs are a particularly beautiful shade of yellow.

 We also have shrubs whose leaves also turn a beautiful shade of red during the winter months and beautiful holly trees and shrubs with a bounty of red berries to share.

I have come to love this time of year and the blessing of having a winter garden. This past weekend, we had a short lived ice storm come through.

It was enough to close schools on Friday and also to leave our beautiful trees and shrubs covered in lovely layer of gleaming ice.

The ice gifted by Mother Nature in our storm highlighted all of my favorite shrubs and trees giving them the appearance that they were dressed to go to a magical Winter Ball.

   How lovely they all looked in their fine glass bobbles and glimmering gems all given by their very own Mother Nature!

Let Your Light Shine!

I have been pondering the idea that the gifts and talents that God gives to us shine right through from the very moment we are born. The cry of a new born child evokes sweet tears of awe as parents rejoice at the birth of God's perfect gift. Through nurturing, encouragement and love those gifts and talents we receive grow and God's light is allowed to shine with an amazing brilliance. So what happens from the time we are born into this world until we become adults and beyond that can cause those perfect gifts to sometimes get locked up and worse still to sometimes never be allowed to shine? Is it the fact that we are born into an imperfect world striving for perfection that an individual's light can get hidden under a bushel in fear that his or her light might not measure up, might not be good enough, or important enough, or dare I say perfect enough to shine to the whole world?

 To the parents who have just welcomed a new bundle of joy into the world, the idea of hiding their child's light under a bushel is indeed ludicrous. How could one even begin to imagine stifling the God-given gifts and talents just waiting to emerge from the perfect newborn infant? As that newborn grows from infancy to adulthood, however, he or she begins to learn through experience just what gifts and talents that he or she possesses that are "acceptable" and "worthy" to be expressed in this imperfect world. Through these experiences, a child can either learn how to embrace, enjoy, nurture, and use his gifts and talents for God's light to shine through or he can learn to doubt, to suppress, to hide and sometimes to forget about his gifts in an effort to become the "perfect" in the imperfect.

 The irony behind striving to be perfect in an imperfect world is that perfection will never be achieved. So to that end an individual driven by perfection will always come up short. On the flip side, an individual who allows perfection to hinder his effort to use his gifts and talents also comes up short. What also may seem ironic is this; God bestows upon us, who are the imperfect, the perfect gifts and talents. When we stop being a slave to perfection and put our trust in God, allowing him to work through our gifts and talents, He uses our imperfections to do his work and his perfect light shines through. This is what we were created in his image to do. He gives each of us passion for things in which He our maker is passionate about. Through each of us embracing our gifts and acknowledging them as tools for God's glory we fulfill God's perfect plan for our lives and we receive the gift of pure joy.

So what are your gifts and talents? Have you been afraid to use your passions for certain things because you were afraid they would not be "perfect?" What happened when you did let go and allowed God to work through your imperfections? It's time to let your light shine. Embrace your imperfections, trust in God, and He will work through you to shine his light to the world.

As Pure as Snow!

I was sitting in Panera sipping my Hazelnut coffee and glad that I was finally drying out after being out in torrential down pours, when I received the call, "Knox County is calling for early dismissal due to projected inclement weather." Thankfully I had already made my grocery store run stocking up on the essentials, bread, milk, eggs . . . as well as the non essentials, brownies, cookies, hot chocolate and marshmallows. The time was 12:15 so I decided to go ahead and go get the girls even before the designated 1:30 dismissal. We made it home and hurriedly unloaded the groceries before settling into pajamas and waiting for the predicted inclement weather.   

At 2:30, the first fluffy wet snow flake fell from the sky to the fan fare of squeals of delight from the girls. By 3:15 the girls were dressed in their new pink and purple snow gear I had found only two days earlier on the clearance aisle at Target

 I had joked with the check-out clerk that my purchase of snow gear would ensure that we would NOT get snow.  I was thankful that Mother Nature proved me wrong with her gift of white.

 The girls exuberance for the white fluffy winter wonderland just outside our door was as pure as the snow they were playing in. There is something about a first snowfall that always brings a smile and a feeling of being a kid again.

We spent several hours out in the snow enjoying sledding, making snow angels, building a snow man and playing with our neighbors.

The sun is shining brightly today and most likely all of the snow will have melted away by tomorrow. I am very thankful that 2013 has given us the gift of snow. If it snows again this year or not, we will have one wonderful snow that will go into our memory books.

The Practice of Family Traditions

When I think of family traditions I think of large gatherings at holidays and the sharing of meals with the same prepared dishes year after year. I think of grandmother's fine china and the passed down baptismal gown that each new family member wears at his or her Christening, and I think of cultural heritage given from one generation to the next. Although one person's family traditions can be very different from another person's , the one common denominator is that through the participation and inheritance of tradition, a person's identity is shaped and memories are formed. Those memories and attached feelings are what spur on the passing down of tradition from one generation to the next and is what makes up the rich fabric of our society.

The word tradition in essence could conjure up something formal but in reality, any kind of together time spent with family that is meaningful and practiced on a regular basis can be the make-up of tradition. It can be family meals together, bed time rituals such as story reading and nightly prayers, trips to the store to purchase new school supplies and more. The wonderful thing about tradition is that it doesn't really matter when it begins or what it entails. A tradition could be hundreds of years old, or it could be newly begun. It could center on making a special pasta dish for Christmas Eve dinner based on an old family recipe, or it could center on a  weekly family movie and dinner night. Again, the important thing is that whatever the tradition,it is meaningful time spent with family or friends that begs to be repeated again and again.

This past Christmas, Howie received a karaoke machine from the girls. Howie is one tough customer to purchase gifts for, not because he is picky, but because he really never wants anything at all. In recent years, I have taken to purchasing him gifts in which he can participate in some fun activity with the girls.

In my gift buying for Howie, I have also inadvertently begun new traditions for our family. The karaoke machine has been a big hit and we have all enjoyed singing to our hearts content on a regular basis. We even have plans to include it as an enhancement in other family traditions such as for birthday celebrations and other fun get togethers.

Family traditions are always a wonderful ways in which to build relationship and memories with loved ones whether they are traditions that have been passed down for generations or ones that have just been begun.

What are some of your favorite family traditions? How have you added to your family's traditions over the years? The other wonderful thing about tradition is sharing them with others.

Detaching Meaning

              One of the problems I have with letting go of things that I have accumulated is that I attach meaning to objects of which I have acquired. I think this is probably the case for most people, although some people have a harder time detaching meaning than others. I use to actually feel like my stuffed animals, dolls, and other toys had real feelings when I was a child. If I had seen Toy Story at the age of eight, I don't think anyone could have ever convinced me that toys are not real and are simply things. What is it with putting a face on something that makes that object come alive? Call me a whack-a-doodle or whatever but I still have to tell myself when I am going through the girls' toys that the stuffed animals and dolls are not real and that their feelings are not being hurt just because I am giving them away. Yes, I know, I'm a nut case :-).

             With other stuff such as clothes and knick-knacks and gadgets around my house, the getting rid of difficulty falls into one of two categories: 1. I could care less about it so good riddance and 2. I care too much about it, but it needs to go so I have to just force myself to let go. The second category happens with things like baby clothes that I get sentimental over or souvenirs in which I attach entire past trip memories to, or the girls' school work in which I want to hold on to every last mis-formed letter that they produce on paper. When I attach some sort of meaning to an object, it almost becomes a part of my identity. Attaching meaning to things is not necessarily a bad thing. Objects can be meaningful and help to tell the story of the human race from ancient history to modern man. It is when too many objects are given meaning that a problem arises as those objects start to encroach upon and weigh down a person's life.

             Detaching meaning from objects can be a very time consuming and painful task. I feel that over the years, I have gotten better at letting go of things in my house and giving them away to our local Community Chest or the Junior League for Bag-A-Bargain. Sometimes I have an occasional regret of an object that I gave away, but most of the time, I could not even begin to tell you what I actually did give away. That is when I know for certain that purging my home of those things was the exact right thing to do. The other problem I encounter is managing the admittance of new objects into my house and making sure I do not repeat a pattern of excess.

Two Christmases ago, my right hand was in a cast and I couldn't decorate our house with all of the stuff that we usually decorate with. I used fresh greens, and holly from my yard that year and brought out only the "essentials," tree ornaments, tree skirt, and stockings from our hoards of Christmas decor. I even bought  fresh Christmas wreaths for the door and windows and that was it. When it came time to undecorate my house it was done in less than half the morning, whereas in the past it had taken me days to take it all down. Since then, I have added back to the Christmas decor that I take out but I have also given a lot of it away. It's still not the huge amount I use to bring out, but some of it has come back in full force. That's the fine line I walk when it comes to things. What is enough to make it just right not only at Christmas time, but also throughout the entire year.

               Deciding what things are meaningful and useful in your home can be a daily struggle. Sometimes I want to purge it ALL! And sometimes I just want to hold on to it all as if my life depended on it. I realize that my life does NOT depend on the things that I posses and in reality those things may sometimes hinder my authentic life living. So the process continues. And in the recognition that the monitoring of the stuff that comes in and out of my house is indeed a process, I grow somewhat day-by-day, year-by-year in knowing what truly is meaningful to me and to my family.

        As an example of objects that can be meaningful, the photos I have posted today come from a family collection of 1950's World Book Encyclopedias as well as a family collection of old cameras. I asked my mom if I could have these things this year. These objects are meaningful to me because they  represent a piece of our family's history. In finding a spot to showcase my "new" old family treasures, I took down objects that were not meaningful, but rather only served to be a space filler. Those non meaningful objects have since been donated instead of relocated to another part of the house. Although the encyclopedias and cameras are objects with attached meaning, the meaning is important to our family. These objects serve to enhance the story of our family and are things I hope will always be passed down from one generation to the next. Will they consume me with thought and worry? No. That's just it. Well-appointed objects serve a family in meaningful ways and enhance daily life whether they serve to work for you or to chronicle your family's history, or to entertain you, etc. In detaching meaning from the objects in one's home, it is not to say that all things should be devoid of any significance. It is to say, however, that careful consideration should be given to the things that do truly enhance your life in order to create a more peaceful and working environment in which your family can thrive. So what are things that are meaningful to you and your family? How do you manage the things that come and go in your home? Do you have any tips on making detaching meaning from an object easier? I'd love to know!

Enough

       When I was a little girl I use to play for hours in the back yard in worlds that were only limited by the stretch of my imagination. I was a princess, a queen, a mommy, a teacher, a doctor, a dog, a horse, a chef, a flower shop owner. . . I made houses out of the sheets my grandmother hung on the clothes line and I baked my cakes and pies on the metal slide in the neighbor's back yard. I made "perfume" out of acorns and necklaces out of old buttons my grandmother kept in a beautiful tin. I cut paper dolls out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog and soared to the moon and back on the backyard swing. I made crowns out of flowers and my bed was a lush green patch of clover under the warm sun or starry skies. The toys I did have sometimes made an appearance as my students in my imaginary classroom or as my royal subjects in my imaginary kingdom. I played from sun-up until after sun-down all through the summer and after my homework was done until dinner time during the school year. Life was good, really good and it was more than enough. I don't remember ever longing for more or chasing after something else because what I had was abundance, not of things, but of pure imagination turned into endless hours of one fun moment after another.

        As an adult with children of my own I am often astounded at the number of toys and things my girls have. This stuff sometimes consumes my world as I go from room to room picking up toys, shoes, clothes, pencils, markers, hair bows, clothes, parts of games, etc. It can sometimes drive me to the brink of wild-eyed, teeth-gnashing craziness. It's not their fault that they have so much. It's mine. But why? Why as a person who as as child had just the right amount of things did I ever feel like I needed to give my girls so much? Only a few of the things that they have are actually truly special to them.I still have many of the toys that were my special playthings as a child. Howie does too. They are well-loved, but well cared for too. I have given away some of the girls' toys and clothes only to find that overnight they have reproduced and the closets and drawers and storage boxes are bursting at the seams. If my girls were to house all of the toys they now have in their adult homes, they would need four homes to fit it all in. In this New Year I have decided that enough is enough and I am going to wrangle in all of this excess not only of the girls stuff but of my own stuff too.

        One of the goals I have for our family is to create an environment of peace in which we feel we can move and breathe and stretch our wings and let our imaginations soar. In the blog world, I have seen others embracing a word to live by for the year. In pondering this idea of a word to live by, many amazing words came to mind such as home, peace, harmony, joy. The word that came to me, not of my on accord, but that I feel is truly Spirit given is the word "enough."  The word "enough" can take on a two-fold meaning including "just right" as well as "no more." In exploring the word "enough" and applying it to my goal of creating a peaceful environment in my home I hope to discover ways in which I can free not only my own thoughts but also the thoughts of my family from the chains of things that bind and hinder us from living the lives we were meant to lead. This is not to say that I am clearing my house of everything that we own. On the contrary, I feel that some things in a home can enrich a person's life through usefulness as well as meaning.  It is to say, however, that I will be doing some intentional thoughtful editing of the stuff that is in our home giving consideration to how it enhances and enriches our lives in a meaningful way.  As I go through this process of editing, I am also going to include the input of Howie and the girls. I know that at some point during the process I may hit a road block of one wanting to hold on to something while another wants to see it go. I hope these moments will be teaching moments for all of us.
       2013 has just begun. I look forward to seeing day-by-day how our lives will be reduced in the amount of stuff  we have while at the same time becoming filled with a feeling of peace and joy through finding what truly is "enough."

      *** I am linking up to The Lettered Cottage for a "Word of the Year" Linky Party. The Letterd Cottage is a wonderful blog with wonderful inspiration for the home and living life too. Click on the button below and check out all of the wonderful "words of the year."

Disney World 2013!

We have been planning our vacation to Disney World at least since April of 2012, so it is hard to believe that it has come and gone so quickly! This was our fifth trip to Disney World since 2008. On our first trip we celebrated Emma-Caroline turning three and Sophie was only 7 months old. Each trip has been filled with many wonderful memories. We were so thrilled this year when our wonderful babysitter Ali was able to go with us. Ali had never been to Disney World before so we enjoyed showing her all the magic that Mickey Mouse had in store for her. Now that the girls are older they were able to ride almost all of the rides. Sophie was still too small for a few of the rides, but she didn't really seem to mind missing Expedition Everest, Space Mountain, and The Rockin' Roller Coaster. Those three rides by the way were Emma-Caroline's favorites.We all had a really wonderful time. Now I am going to do a photo blitz of our trip to Disney. Dreams really do come true!

Getting our yearly photo in front of Cinderella's castle.

Waiting for the bus to go to the Magic Kingdom!

 

It's a Small, Small World!

 

 

Riding the River Boat in Fronteir Land

Making a Wish!

 Watching the parade!

 Riding Ariel's New Undersea Adventure.

 

 Dining with Donald and friends at the Animal Kingdom!

 

 Miss Ali in front of the Tree of Life.

 

 Dining with Cinderella and the Princesses at Cinderella's Castle!

 

 Taking a spin on the tea cups.

 

 Visiting Pooh's House and havin dinner with Pooh and friends!

 

Waiting for the fireworks show to begin.

Miss Ali in front of Cinderella's Castle all lit up.

And they lived happily ever after!

The End.