More tests tomorrow....

My daughter is having more medical tests tomorrow.  Please keep her in your prayers. Prayer works, and we need it all.

Thanks.

Stress, gratitude and exhaustion

I am way behind on this blog.  My older daughter is still very sick, and we are trying desperately to figure out what is wrong.  My younger daughter is struggling with school and friends and growing up issues, and I struggle with feeling that I am not giving her what she needs and deserves. I seldom get to see my son, who lives in another state, and whom I miss more each passing day.

 Financial stress adds to the mixture. Trying to stay on top of everything at work. Side writing jobs long since abandoned.  Exchanges, swaps, blog parties, all late or missed.I simply cannot turn on the computer for more than a few minutes at home.  My eyes, brain, spirit will not cooperate.  A recent loss of an extended family member, and yesterday, the sudden the loss of my best friend's father, and wanting to be there for my loved ones who have lost so much.

I crave sleep like a wanderer in the desert would crave water. I crave peace and rest and renewal.  I need time to center myself, but the time just isn't available right now.

Yes, in the midst of trying to keep my eyes open and my brain functioning, I am profoundly grateful.

I am grateful for the wonderful man I married in March.  I know he thinks that I could not understand loneliness as he once did, because I had my children, but he's wrong.  In a post on this blog a few years ago, I wrote about a lonely evening in a candlelit apartment, and another on a midnight beach.  And now, instead of posts about tears, I wrote about our house of dreams and dreams come true.  And I am profoundly grateful to him for all that he is -- yes, for what he does, too -- but more so for what he is.

And I am grateful for my children, and the joy they have added to my life since the day each of them entered my world. Even when it's a struggle, or we're battling over messy bedrooms or last-minute school projects, I am grateful for them.

I'm grateful for a job I love, for my dog and kitties who great me at the door each evening, for my 100,000+ mile car that still runs, and for so many other things.

But despite the gratitude, I am still tired. Bone tired. Brain tired. Spirit and soul tired.

So I apologize for things I've missed, comments I have not left, comments I have not acknowledged.  Please, gentle readers, forgive me.

Alphabet Thursday Games

I was walking along by a pond on Sunday. I saw a family having a picnic. It was a big family!...Thirty or forty at a minimum. But a big part was missing. Can you find out what?

Hints

I saw:

Four or so boys floating boats in a pond
Two moms grilling hot dogs
A group of moms knitting and talking and laughing
A bunch of girls playing Monopoly
Kids with iPods
Six boys and girls tossing a football around
Dads and granddads talking about sports and politics
A baby girl with a big black toy train and a baby boy with a small pink toy lion
Lots of food!  So much food for a picnic lunch! A giant sub sandwich or two, four kinds of soups, fruit of all kinds, chips and dip, cinnamon rolls, popcorn, candy, sushi, pasta salad, fruit tarts, flan, puddings, nuts of all kinds -- YUM!

And funny things, too....

A dog who was drinking milk from a glass!
Cats who could walk on two paws without falling!
A pig who could draw with chalk! And paint, too!
A duck who had on sandals and socks, and a small pink t-shirt that said "Quack!"

This family all had on ski hats and big coats, too, but it was sooo hot that day! Almost as though it was July or August, not autumn. It was an awfully odd day for coats and hats outdoors! But still, all had fun that day, hot or not. .

So what was missing from this family picnic?
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.
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.
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Why, E is Exceptionally Absent! Happy Alphabet Thursday!

A message to my readers....

My daughter has been sick for the past two weeks.  Between doctors appointments and taking care of her, my blog has been neglected.  I know am behind on two critical posts...Pink Saturday and the Halloween Blog Party, and I will post both of those entries in the next couple of days.

But for now, my energy is going elsewhere.  Please add you prayers to mine for her fast and complete recovery. Thanks!

Moving offices -- a parallel to life

It was recently announced that in a giant corporate game of musical chairs, almost all of us will be shifting from one office to another.  And with that statement, most of us will be leaving behind the offices we've come to know as home for 9 or so hours a day...longer than we spend at home and awake on a typical weekday.

For some of us, that rearrangement also means leaving behind the comfort of a big office with a closed door and moving into a cubicle...that most wretched of corporate creations, clearly modeled after someone's long-ago rat maze experiment in a dark, damp college psych department basement. I would bet they got an "F" on it, by the way. Cubicles are their revenge.

Back to the move... as I inwardly (okay, a little outwardly, too) complained about the move, I realized that this kind of shuffling is a lot like life.

We get comfortable somewhere.  We go through our days, adding our own personal touches to our lives, in the belief that we are the master's of our destiny...or at least our daily life. ..

...and then WHAM, something completely out of our control sends us completely out of our comfort zone.  And in a flash, everything we expected to do each day is shifted...or gone.  And odds are we complain, and gripe as we pack up our old life and move somewhere else, whether it's a new location, a new relationship status or a new set of daily focuses.

But here's the kicker.  We complain and resist that change, EVEN IF IT'S SOMETHING GOOD!  Something better than we had before.  Now we're not talking somewhere down the road good, I mean even if it is "Slap you in the face and no mistake about it good."  We're still hanging on by our proverbial fingernails to what "used to be."

I want to try to break that pattern with this move to a new office.  So here are the pluses....

1) I will have a window -- a big window -- for the first time with this company.
2) The move will force me to look at what I need in my office, versus what ended up there, and that will clear the energy by clearing the clutter.
3) If I can create the right attitude, I will be one step closer to non-attachment to unimportant things.

Not there yet...I am still mourning for the office-with-a-door that I'm leaving, and I still think it's a mistake to uproot people like this.  But I have a glimmer of hope that come Wednesday morning, when I sit down and look out the window at the beautiful Florida sky, watch an airplane fly overhead, or maybe spot the family of raccoons I've been told play there, I will be on my way.

Backyard dreams for Pink Saturday

For the past few months, my husband has been working hard on our backyard. There was tons and tons of decking, covering over half of the yard. And it was all rotting, so up it must come.

He's done a lot of it already...and teh rest is in progress.

But even before the first board was removed, I started recreating the space in my head...

1) It will be green and rich and shady, to make it perfect for an early morning breakfast or a late afternoon cup of tea.

2) It will be welcoming, with comfortable places to sit and secret spots of beauty to discover.

3) It will look as though it has been there for years, growing and becoming. No neat rows of perfectly spaced identical plants.  Nothing that would be called "landscaping" or "shrubbery."

4) But most, most most of all, it will be a place where fairies and other magical beings will feel at home. Where the mere fact that a visitor hasn't seen them is not enough to convince anyone they aren't there.  Instead, they will say... "Was that a glimpse of a wing just around that tree?" Or perhaps,   "Did I see an odd sparkle among those flowers? "


For now it's still in the dream stage.  There are piles of wood, and some still to be removed.  Then there is the ground to level, and plants to buy....

But it's on its way! And that is good enough for now :-)

Happy Pink Saturday!

The divine sparks are everywhere.....

Light plays a critical role in almost every religion. Light as energy, light as G-d (or Goddess), light as renewal or hope....

Candles, stories of light, prayers for divine light exist in almost every faith.

According to one of Judaism's great mystical Rabbis, when G-d was creating the universe, the process began with vessels filled with some of G-d's own divine light.  But the vessels could not contain such powerful light (what COULD contain G-d, really?) and the vessels shattered.  Shards of divine light spread throughout the universe, and became a part of every thing -- people, animals, plants, even inanimate things likes rocks.  So in everything we see/touch/breathe there is a bit of G-d's light.

I love that story.  It mirrors the interconnectedness of all things in Buddhism, as well as the many faces and aspects of G-d in Hinduism. It reflects the all-reaching light of the Goddess, and the all-encompassing touch of Mother Earth from Wiccan and Native American beliefs. And that should come as no surprise...surely the light which reaches all things, has been felt and seen by all beings at some point in time.

Every where and every thing G-d's light. She/He is the light. Within and without.

Nowhere and Now Here...

Love and Light to you all.  Namaste. Shabbat Shalom.