Breathe and say Thank You...

I awoke this morning about 2:15 to see hard cold frost covering the snow that had fallen the evening before.How could I plan such a beautiful landscape. If only I could paint it right...

The light was so orchestrated I could see the Hand of the Master Painter.

It happens more often these days. Just a few days ago, we were riding in the car and suddenly there was a strange irridescence to the tips of the frosted trees against the dark snow clouds.. Even the man of the house commented that moments that take away your breath are what makes living worth it all.

I am not ready to empty nest.

But then again I really am not going to be empty nest yet, I still have to most wonderful girl in Kirena. She is beautiful. smart and just quirky enough to help me stay at my sharpest.

I get too greedy, I have this wonderful family, supportive and kind, and I get on call grandchildren with Deeter here.

Oh but my peaches girl is so special. I love here slightly left of center point of view....

I am seriously blessed by all my girls. Maimie, Riahbiah, Juju and Peaches.

They make me wonder how much my mom would have been with them. Bet she would have bought out the Swiss Formula Shampoo factory, HUH?

The day goes on, what a joy to know that we have the day ....

God gives certain things into our control. We have very little of it to control, really. But what control over orselves we have, we should use wisely. What we say. What we eat. How we chose to conduct ourselves.

I admit that I do so little intentional control over my own stuff. Why not? I constantly worry about what I cannot control. Others' actions or comments, weather, income, mechanical failures, photographs coming out, stains coming out, sunrise, sunsets, whatever...

I have wasted sooo much time on stupid stuff. That all saying about worrying about the small stuff, and it it being all small.

I love my family. What a bunch of goofs we are. And we still love one another, go figure...

I am blessed by infinite choices that I do not even blink at before making.

With such disregard for the priveledge, it is no wonder that we are given little control over events and only over our own willful choices....

I choose today to find joy in the life given.

Love fest!

Oh to be priveledged to take part in such a love fest!
This is a squeezey face moment... Warms the soul. Really!

Then there was Thomas

When everything else fails there is Drake love of trains...

Oh the day ! It will be a day to remember. He tells us almost everyday how he road Thomas the Train. Even though he has had another eventful and record setting day at Remlinger Farm with Grandpa Jim, equally exciting, he keeps telling us about Thomas...These two full days' events have blended in his little mind, Something about Turkey Lurkey along the tracks with Thomas, "Ohld MCDonald has some "butts" "Here a cow butt, there a duck butt...E, I, E, I, OHHHH!" And then there were trains...

But the day was more than this. It was watching his little face as we road the antique train going by the Snoqualmie Falls...And watching his mommy's face watching his...It was sooo worth it.

A call

When I least expect it, when I most need it... I am blessed with a phone call...Life is just almost two swift for me to breathe. And then it shifts to a halt. Words of support, love and kindness from a source I rarely hear from due to my own "pushing". What a wonder you are. What an absolute God-send you are in that moment. I needed to hear that I wasn't messing up again...Thank you.

Oh what a dude

Drake is flying his colors as he celebrates his third birthday.

When you think you have outgrown the LITTLE THINGS...

You have to ralize that all the little things are what make the life worth while...
God has blessed me with a wonderful family. What a great day out with my grandson and his mom and all the other parts of our family that make it worth getting up for.

While it is true that we all suffer more than our fair share of idiosyncrasies we are darn cool too.
Thank God for a day that cements those kind of feelings of well being.

I can only wonder how much my own mom would have enjoyed our Dootermus and Gabby..as well as the other girls...

The Jewel of time

Okay, I was esoteric. I have been working this for a while. and no... I's not depressed. Just been thinkin...

Every moment of every day is precious. I have decided that any momemt that I am not "present" and conscience about what I am about, I have sold away a part of my day. I seek to treasure each., savoring them

I have to admit that the concept is lovely. But let us be real here... to be present for so much of what is going on with me and around me is exhausting, at times. I am not surprized that I desensitize myself to the current minute and my own reactions. Any given moment can be painful, boring, tiring, overwhelming- all the gamut of emotions that I have carefully schooled my heart to buffer for my brain. I have to just not feel sometimesl... I know that this is not healthy for me or any one around me. So I persist keeping in the moment. I can processs later, right?

Mom used to say that daily living is like body surfing in the ocean. When a wave feels too big for me to swin, I was to straighten out and glide with the current. Then and only then can you swim out of the rip tide and circle back to the safety of the beach, thus surviving an otherwise unsurvivable situation. The trick to is to keep breathing calmly, head above water.

The real trick is to stay alive to be there when it all sorts itself out in the end... It will too, I have seen it with my own peepers. Thank you Jesus!

And the winner is....

Kirena's artwork titled

"Love"

created on Paint Program

When I was seventeen all I ever wanted was IT ALL! Family, home, travel, cool cars, gallery showings...Ya know everything! Well let me tell you on the other end of it ... I get my wish! A family to die for and of whom I am very proud, even with the quirks spawned by my own. Travel from Carnation to Everett twice a week, to Everett to Kirkland, to Redmond and back; to my own front beautifully-flowered yard filled with gifts from great gardener friends, and then to my back yard to play in NANA Park! Cool cars that run, YEAH!!! with a live-in mechanic who is sooo good looking even when he's exhausted from all his work. I own the greatest refrigerator gallery ever for all my children's and grand children's latest artwork...which change as often as I am presented new pieces of great works!

Years back when I was living with a dark heart wishing for all I had hoped for at seventeen, I could not foresee how things would be after all was said and done. I still don't know how it will turn out, but what a direction it has taken so far...

Dooters Party

Bronze Queen amidst the peasants

My irises are arising out of clouds of pernicious weeds.

I keep promising myself that I will get to arrive into a weedfree front garden soon. Yet I only may arrive after I assist my ever hard working hubby get the rear of the house straightened out. So far I have two beds in back and the veggies settled into the raised bed for the summer. Still not to the front--and it stands to shame me everytime I park the car in the drive from some errand...

The gravel beds are overrun with vines from hell. and over balances with mountain bachelor button plants. I cringe when I hear the word native plant and naturalizer perrenials.

I cannot help but wonder where the time goes during the week. Well, not really...It is spent taking care of all those "details" that I was rudely reminded that I do not handle well in the professional world..All those wonderful little strings that make up the fabric of the family life...All detail, mundane and necessary, left to itself can sink the week.

Every thing is important when other peoples lives are being dealt with--registration for sixth grade, bill payments of household workings, husbands jeans in the laundry to wear today to work, after school scout rides, state DSHS applications for elder care, banking, gas in the vehicle, dinner at five not six, to reach the rehearsal on time.

Oh, yah, check the computer for damage after the earth quake...And don't forget that the man comes home hungry at midnight...

It all seems to grow up around my ankles like the sticky weed vines that clog the rake in the gravel path way-out front.

But there is the moments with the girls and the babes! they arise out of the messes to bless me, calm my heart and help me to see that the Peace rises above the other details to shine just when I am most needful...

Little Gaurdian Garden Angel

KC wants to add a post :


It is kind of hard to start another week.

That is, until I look out my window and see this little angel praying for me. It reminds me how God loves me so much that He would send angels to protect me.

Sompin About Dirt

I spent most of the day grubbing in the back yard. I had dirt in my hair, on my clothes and under my fingernails. Even with gloves, dirt finds its way there. It made me settle down inside my bad self. There was still dishes and laundry and unmade beds inside, but turning the garden for the new tomato sets, the baby bean plants and jack o lanter pumpkins was what I needed.

None of us really felt well. Colds, bad tempers, and stress of too much to do. The sun was warm however, and being outside was healing for all of us. It changes everything sometimes.

What started as a rugged day for the family turned out after all to be a very peaceful day. We even managed a trip to get ice cream cones from our fav place in Duvall.

Of course we hit beds like proverbial logs.

On Board at Jamestown

Labels, names and titles...

"What is in a name? A rose by any other name sells just a sweet..."

What do you do when your loved one is given a new label, descriptive but not of her own choosing? I have to choose to celebrate her differences and thank Jesus she was given to parents that celebrate her life! She has made my life full and rewarding. It is also true she is a well of joy! I am blessed that the pros have such a grasp on who she is and who she is able to propel herself to being.

It is all about equipping our children isn't it; it is our holy calling from the Father above, as parents. But what happens when we as parents have not ourselves become equipped to do the job...who helps us and holds our immature hands in this scary journey of identities of the middle school mini adult

Thankfulness is good for the soul...

There is so many things for which to be thankful. Rain in Seattle to make it green... Sun when we get it, that peeks from behind the trees and shocks you into squinting into God's beauty of the VAlley...a prepubescent hand in mine when I cross a parking lot..she still holds me hand, pinch me! Cars that are running smoothly, and a home to enter when tired of the "out there" day. Dishes being in the macine and washing(...you all KNOW how I dislike/hate/detest dirty dishes.) Wonderful grown adult children/women that honor each other with decency and warm regard for one another in ther own respective ways.

Prayer in those lost, confused times when I do not know what to do.

And let us not even go into the food, warm beds and cash to pay bills due to a dilegent husband and miraculous employment...

It is enough to make me wonder why God loves me sooo much...

Every new Day...

brings its own joys and sadness. Saturday a major piece of the family relocated to a new local. What a difference and what a shadow of what it could be like without the day to day connection with a family member. I real with the magnitude of ripple effect in life as I know it without Grandad at home.
Coming home the house felt hollow and loud...and strangely silent at the same time. How I have been blessed these past years with his presence and his sense of living.

New days, each with its own color and beauty are strung together like pearls to form our lives. It is only after beholding them in retrospect do we actually see how God has formed us to His delight.

It seems that I am prone to have one or the other children-great work if you can get it... :-)

Blinded by God's kindness in a sometimes unkind world

I have reached an interesting point of the day. Do I get down to paying the bills or go to bed? The bills won. How is it that once again the God in charge has literally set my feet on dry ground and presented me with good choices and happy endings? It never ceases to amaze and astonish my heart just how much God looks after me.