The Mount

The mount is not meant to teach us anything. It is meant to make us something.
Oswald Chambers

don’t hide

follow your inner moonlight – don’t hide the madness
Allen Ginsberg

New Eyes

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust

Learning to Live with my Neighbor

I have a hard time sometimes loving people correctly when they steal my (or someone I love’s) joy or cause me (same drill) turmoil.  Don’t we all I suppose.  Lately I have had to begin to learn how because I live very close to someone who accidentally steals my joy.  He is a very practical person who would rather not have flowers than even think about weeds and all of the ways that things up close to your house make life harder and sometimes uglier for a few days if you can’t maintain the beds.  A person who loves me very much but cannot understand why I sometimes do the things I do.  A person who thinks his way is the best way things should be so why do them they way, I don’t know… maybe I would want to do them.  

Then there is the person caught in the middle – who loves us both and who understands where we are both coming from and has to make sure that we don’t offend each other too often.  

All of this to say – my joy-stealer, deep deep down in his heart, would be very hurt and sad if he knew that is how I sometimes thought of him.  The person in the middle endures a little extra stress and strife because that is how I think of said stealer of joy and I waste time and energy being upset about it.

I’ve decided it is time to do something different.  I don’t know what yet , but I’m sure it’ll come to me and I’ve decided that  – no matter what – I will not ever call (even in my head) my father-in-law – who, yes, is my neighbor – the Joy Thief (sardonically, humorously, seriously, or while I’m crying because he ran over my flowers with his tractor – which admittedly hasn’t happened in a long while now).  Maybe I’ll just try Dad…  😉

Out on the Edge

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over.
Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things that you can’t see from the center.
~Kurt Vonnegut

north for the summer

I saw a flock of geese heading north in a perfect V the other day.

Made me wonder why we always talk about them flying south for the winter, but never flying north for the summer.

It has a nice redemptive sound to it, I think.  It also offers a measure of hope for re-creation.

Still pondering it over this morning and thought I’d share.

love and peace ~M

The picture really doesn’t have much to do with the post…

 

I know quite a few people who have good reason to have a healthy cry now and then.  The reasons vary and are of no importance to this post.  

What I’ve begun to notice is that they don’t cry always when I expect them to.

They seem to be moved by moments of great beauty.  A song.  A poem.  A sunrise.  A painting. The end of a day of family being together.  Then they cry because they are happy.

Reminds me of a quote I saw somewhere…  “Sadness is happiness for deep people.”

Just what is on my mind today.  I hope your day is what you want it to be.

peace and smiles.  ~M

forgiveness

I think the hardest thing isn’t always forgiving others.  

To me, it is forgiving yourself.

It is hard to move past a mistake that you know you shouldn’t have made due to impatience or ignorance or whatever.  But you try and eventually it fades into the distance and as long as you don’t look back too often, you can learn to live with those pesky mistakes.

 

that is all for today

peace and love

M

bugs need homes, too…

So this is how you make a bug house.  Not the only kind of bug house and certainly not the best bug house, but a great bug house that your nephew calls a bird house and eventually you call it one, too, just because he finally wore you down.  So you walk around your yard aimlessly collecting things that very well may work while creating an insect paradise.  Your yard is cleaner and your husband points out that you found really cool stuff to take to your sister’s house for them to have a bug hotel.  You ignore the husband and take the awesome stuff that you are secretly jealous that your sister gets to have and put it in your car.  When you get to the sister’s house, you pile the stuff on the carport and get to work while the nephew (who is supposed to be helping) plays in the rain.

I saw that they had straw so I bundled some up and put it in a little yellow pot that I spray painted that happy color of yellow this past summer.  I added some bricks and the cool little box for the flower pots to sit on top of.  Earlier in the day, I had my dad drill holes in the metal desk drawer that is the frame of our happy little buggy house and also in the wood that I was going to use because that is  how the little critters get into their new deluxe desk drawer house and then make cozy homes.  No holes = no home.  Remember this people – it is super important.

Then I taught the boy to jump in mud puddles while we picked up pine cones and pine needles for the other flower pot.  I don’t know what kind of bugs like to live in them, but I was certain that some sort of insect would be happy, warm, and dry down in there so I went with it.

We then helped the princess fix her crown.

k.  All better now.  Pretty girl was tired, but was a trooper while we worked and talked and played.

Since a bug house just isn’t a bug house until it can be a home to ladybugs, we added a bundle of bamboo that I heisted from the house a few doors down.  There is also some decomposing stump wood in there just because.

Now – tilt your head to the right.  This is one way that I could have left the house.  I felt that it looked empty and I had a lot of stuff left, so I took it apart and watched J play in the water while I talked to his mom.  

 

You have to stop and appreciate the little things while working on a project like this or the memories aren’t nearly as great.  My hubs says, “He looks like a bent and bowed old man there holdin’ that crooked stick.”  He kinda does I suppose.

Almost finished, but not quite – I felt like it all sat too far back in.

I added more bricks and bamboo and was pretty happy with the finished product.  Sister dear was overjoyed and that is really all that matters.

Then we watched J play in the rain a little while longer.  It’s fun to watch little people discover new things about life.  He is very enthusiastic about it which makes it even more fun to watch happen.

 

We had to add the frog full of moss because what insect house doesn’t need a red frog full of moss, right?

 

Then we (mama) decided that little J needed a bath and then bedtime.

All in all – it was a great day rain and all.  It’s all about making the memories, folks.  Don’t forget.

 

peace and smiles to you and yours.  ~M

vague post that still means a lot

Some stories you just can’t tell – simply because the truth is too hard.

It’s too hard for the teller and too hard for the receivers.  

Today the teller was a 4 year old and the receivers were the rest of us.

I reaffirm that life is to be lived.