Happy New Year

New Years Blessings to one and all! Simon and Garfunkle just sang us "our" song, Bridge over Troubled Water. What a gift from God, that, from a couple of 60 year old guys who haven't sung together for decades, for a couple of almost old folks, sitting around watching TV and eating sushi on New Years Eve. Here comes 2008, I hope it's great! I bless you with the rich bounty of God's almight good! :-)

Strength

What is strength made up of? A tree does not DO anything it is persistently BEING. How many years ago did some seed send it's tiny root deep into the earth to stake it's claim? Appearances are the tree never moves, even the growing is a miniscule thing, taken for granted season after season. The tree is committed to it's own nature, confined to it's own business. Today at church, they talked about the faith of a mustard seed which would never become anything BUT a mustard plant. Here we see the faith, the strength of an oak seed, becoming only oak, determined beyond man's clever inventions to be an oak tree. It did not rail against the sticky wet pavement when it was laid, it did not object, protest or complain. The oak stuck to it's own flexible and growing mission without regard to any other thing, and look! I've an anonymous quote that flashes across my screen when my mind (or body) wander too far away... "Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's little nut that held it's ground." So, as the year ends and I project forward into the new one beginning, help me remember my own nature, my own business and instead of busily "doing" let me just "be" a little nut that holds its ground.

Burning Bowl

New Year's Eve at Unity we will burn our lists of what no longer serves our visions of ourselves and make note of the attributes we would like to see ourselves manifesting. In fore-thought I'm pondering who I would like to see myself becoming. So many words come up... compassionate, loving, generous, free, healthy, wealthy, wise (which is the use of all these other things). Prosperous is a word including all other happy things, but how does one measure prosperity? I'm already far ahead of most people in the world having this computer, let alone the electricity to run it. I have a car and a job I love, a healthy husband and two spoiled cats. Still, I would like to see the bills disappear, not to mention thirty some pounds.
See, there always IS something. Could I be content, thrilled even, that I have year-round access to a swimming pool, that I can do laundry in the basement, take a hot shower any time at all? How can it be that things so much of the world is missing are taken so much for granted by me that I forget to count them as assets at all. Maybe the thing to BE or spend 2008 becoming would be completely and totally GRATEFUL!

New Year's Party

All the bears are ready for a proper New Years Eve Party. We send you all our wishes for a lovely celebration of the completion of the past and honoring all the hopes and dreams we would like to see manifest in the time ahead. We wish you a solid grounding in the Now, a full awareness of the Divine that resides within and all the love and health that is yours by divine right. :-)

Last Two

Shrimp! Such a party food. For the BBQ, Thanksgiving, the Christmas party, New Years Eve, a standard, really. There was too much food this Christmas and the shrimp had to wait until today. Princess-cat heard (with the magical ears that cats have) him open the fridge and put the first 2 shrimps in her bowl. He'd hoped to get them up to room temperature, but she was too quick for him. "Me-Now" she said, and that is what he did. JoyJoy won't touch it, wants to catch her own dinner or eat the poultry stuff I make for her. She don't want no stinking fish!
So, tonight Prin had shrimp, Steve had shrimp and I had shrimp tonight. The last two are sitting in the cat bowl coming up to room temp and waiting for her royal catness.

Midnight Clear

It certainly was a midnight clear last night! Christmas Eve my drive to and from the candle-lit service at church, I played hide and seek... well, I played seek while that stunning full moon danced into and out of the few remaining clouds.

Beary Christmas

We wish you a beary Happy Christmas! We wish you peace and love, health and joy! :-)

Home Sweet Home

It's good to be home again after all the Christmas visits. Maybe we didn't sit back in our cozy chairs listening to TV and reading our papers, but we were both glad to be home. It's all done now except present opening, trash removal, and of course, getting the water heater fixed. There really IS always something, but after the visits and consideration of all the different "somethings" it could possibly be, I'm content with this one. It's not too traumatic. Love and Blessings to everyone and wishing you the joy of being home! :-)

Emptiness

The house echos of emptiness even though there are a dozen people there. The one person that is actually missing, fills the house with a hollow feeling. After so many months of round-the-clock care she has at last become carefree and free of all cares. But those who have spent the year giving her continual care really really miss her. Of course, there is relief that she is free of her pain, struggle and confusion, but what do we do now without her to care for? It's wonderful how adaptable we are! Although it was difficult to adapt to life of perpetual care, the task at hand is to adapt to the lack thereof. Take heart dear friend, we'll all adjust and we'll never forget your gifts of love.

Full Cycle

How often have I seen and honored the cyclical nature of things. How there is beauty to be found in the bud, the growing and closing stages, even disintegration, the completion of the rose cycle and the beginning of the compost phase. Still at Christmas, when the world is cold and moving slow, when Spirit plays tug-of-war with Greed, it's hard to see the year winding down, the ending of so many things, and find closure with people, places, times and things. I hope to let go, as easily as this flower does, to what no longer serves me. I wish to allow the natural order of things. I desire to see the good, find the beauty, accept serenly, the Divine Order of everything. All I want for Christmas is ...inner peace.

Icecicle's Galore

They're everywhere these days, since the ice storm was followed by snow Friday and then snow again on Sunday causing us to take the quantum leap from Autumn to Winter (before winter's even begun). Yes, it's messy and slippery, inconvenient and dangerous, and spectacularly BEAUTIFUL! Icecicles and the shadows they cast, icecicles reflected in windows, decorating clothlines, gracing the corners of the most ugly of buildings! And me running wild jumping out of the car, most conspicuously since the accumulated snow has taken up most of the parking. Here I go again, camera in hand capturing what I can while it is busy disappearing!

Dress Warm

There weren't many people in the pool this morning. I guess not many people got up thinking, "It's 12 degrees, let's go swimming!" It was a lovely quiet morning for a workout in the warm pool after doing laps in the olympic. A lady in the sauna was soaking up her warm peaceful feelings before heading to the mall for Christmas shopping. I warned her not to do it, then I went to get some groceries and discovered that this "between-storms" status has turned up the volume on everybody's intensity meters.

I was really glad to have my big down coat on today, and even with that and the 3 layers of pants it was still pretty chilly. The back porch steps were iced over from the little bit of melt we had. Each step made icecicles down to the one below it. We've lived her 10 years and never saw anything like that before. I guess it is, indeed, a whole nother year!

Step Slide

Finally, it's the real SNOW and it's been coming down for hours. The kids next door came home early from school and it looks like the folks aren't home yet. Well, no matter, these kids know how to entertain themselves. How wonderful to see them come out on the front porch with the snow shovel. Wow, are they going to... no, wait! They're shoveling the snow up on to the steps, yes, they're packing it down firmly ON the stairs. Oh, I see, here comes the plastic circular "sled" ...wosh he's pushed her down the newly created hill where she's landed in the drift, giggling. There's a lot of laughter going on over there right now. So many ways to ride the tiny sled down the 4 stair slope. I just hope I don't hear the screaming when the grown-ups come home, try to climb the stairs (or even shovel them) and end up sliding down that will-slicked hill!

Predictions

Well, this is what the weatherman is predicting for tomorrow and again this weekend. I have my doubts, but you never know. Of course, THIS one was mid winter, mid-season, kneedeep and a few years back. It takes a little while to accumulate THIS much snow...I hope! :-)

Candle Season

I love candle season. Here it is ALMOST winter, the windows are all closed and it's dark much earlier. Now's the time to light the scented jar candles and let them burn for hours. It's lovely to come in from the cold outdoors and smell the fresh sweet scent of pine or coffee or ode de apple cobbler. I adore the gentle warm glow from the flickering light in the corner. Candle season really is a wonder!

Now, here's the kind of help anybody working on the computer Really Needs! She's grown up so big now and almost never gets involved in computer work, but she still knows how to get what she wants from her poppa person!

Busy reading "Twas the night before Christmas" to his little baby bear, our bespeckled teddy suddenly came nose to nose with Metoo. Actually, it took her a long time to get that close to the scary talking thing that wiggled. The two of them kept me laughing a long time, though.

With the TV off...

Not only is it quieter with the TV off, there appears a canvas on the empty screen of shadow and shape and light from inside the real room. Here my tiny wooden shelf-bear rests in his footed pajamas, holding his Christmas stocking, empty and waiting. He reclines next to the santa hat some other bear is wearing. It's peaceful in the house, maybe there's seasonal music. Above the bear, reflected in the gray of the empty screen, the Christmas tree and lights, ornaments and curling ribbon streamers produce a quiet riot of holiday celebration.

Day of Ice

I took this picture again this morning, but for the inches of snow below the icecicles. I love the morning light shining sideways through the chimney ice. Today, all day, everything sparkled. Morning light, side light, back light, sunset light. Yep, everything! Even when I came out of the gym at 8pm, the tree outside glistened in the street light. I stopped cold (and I mean that literally) awestruck by the beauty of it. It seems I should have been used to it since there was nothing outside today that was not glazed in glittering glory. I guess I'm just too easy to please.

Ice Storm

That was quite an ice storm. A good solid inch of ice on the bottom, plenty of sloppy rain on top and it snowed for an hour just to slush it up a bit more. That poor man has been scraping and scratching away at it for hours now, so when the temperature plummets it won't become lumpy cement. Christmas decorations are down all over and most of the inflated ones won't recover for days. Some, as you can see, are pretty resilient. December 3rd and two white storms already. I wonder if anybody around her is dreaming of a White Christmas? I wonder if we can stop them?

December 1st

We got some snow this morning. No, not even this much, just a dusting! Only a reminder, really, of the seasons changing. Not that we were in need of one. People have been in the shopping frenzy for days already and THE music is consistently on everywhere I go. If everybody's dreaming of that White Christmas, then I guess we have to get used to the idea that it's going to keep getting colder.

Flannel Sheets

Flannel sheets must be one of the all time greatest inventions. There is such a feeling of luxury snuggled down into their soft fuzziness, warm and comfortable when the room is cold. I found out last year, though, that you can't really sleep in flannel sheets when you're wearing your flannel pajamas. It's sort of like being in a velcro trap the way they stick to each other. Forget turning over - it's impossible.
I guess it would be better not to be thinking about flannel sheets, when it's 30 degrees outside, the bed is already made, the electric blanket is making my flannel sheets toasty warm, and it's 10 o'clock at night. This subject certainly has brought my evening to it's conclusion.

Work Day

There goes another working day. Thanksgiving is past and the next batch of holiday moments is distant. For now it's all about meeting the appointments on the calendar and scheduling people for the coming month. It all seems so normal, another month, except nobody wants to schedule the 25th or the 31st, and they're even a bit iffy about the 30th and 24th. Well, if Oscar and Ginger can put in another work day, I guess I can too.

Leaves

The neighbors were all out today, taking advantage of the 50 degree weather, raking, blowing, vacuuming, grinding, bagging. It looks so neat and tidy on the freshly cleared lawn, but the tree is not through shedding. Leaves that spent their entire lifetime of this summer budding, growing, and coloring still have the moment of releasing ahead. Some will nosedive directly to the ground, some will wait for a good wind and dance their way across the road - around the neighborhood. Some will dance and swirl delicately, catch the updraft, and ride the currents to the ground again. I would choose that if I were a leaf, before I took my rest. :-)

Last Fall Colors

Most of the trees are naked now, there aren't many more leaves to come down, but I don't want you to think there is any lack of leaves around my house. You will probably laugh, or maybe just empathize with my poor hubby who came over to the computer corner to make a copy of some "important" piece of paper, only to find the scanner already filled to the brim with these...

I can still hear him yelling, "DONNA!"

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough, and have yourself a Merry little Christmas now!

Party On !

Partying at Ann's house today.... actually trying to work on the web site, but cannot forget about the bears....

Beginning

Here is my favorite photo today: