A NEW QUOTE FOUND

I think we all know how much I love finding quotes that I want to remember. The best place I know to put them is here on my BLOG.  I tag them as a quote so when I want to review the quotes that have meant something to me over the months and years of writing I can find them again.  This morning I read a quote that definitely is one I need to remember and review often.

"Let go of what you THINK life should be so you can experience the life you have."

~~Rhonda Britten.

This needs to be my mantra chanted every morning when I wake up!   I spend way to much time dwelling on what I thought my life was or what it should be that I am afraid I am missing out on what it is and seeing the good in it.  I may not be living the life I envisioned for myself, but I have a life I am living.  I need to live it and I need to trust that it is in all its imperfection a good life. 

FATHER'S DAY 2011

Ah, Father's Day.  A day when families come together and celebrate the fathers in them.  What can I say but how much I miss having a father to celebrate with.  Its been a day of remembrance.  I miss being with the various fathers that have been in my life.  We are all separate be it by miles, physical death, or death of a relationship, but the memories are all still intact and for those I am grateful!  A big thank you to the Father's and also Grandfather's in my life.  I love you all!

FROM...THE LETTER

As I've been working to clear out the house of 28 years of accumulated stuff I've been reading a lot of books to try and relax in the evening.  I really enjoy reading and try to make time each morning and evening to do a bit.  It was interesting that in a devotional I read earlier in the week the thought was presented that in every story we read God can be found.  I think the authors premise was that where ever there is protection, love, help, serving, and such it is God that is behind those acts.  The author of the  devotion challenged his readers to look for God's presence in everything we read and everything we experience during a days time.  Not sure if I follow his thinking about God being found in every book I've read, but it an interesting thought.

The book I am reading at the moment is The Letter by Richard Paul Evans.  It is the last book in The Christmas Box collection. I've already read The Christmas Box and The Timepiece. All are easy and quick reads and for light reading they are enjoyable. There were several statements made by one of the characters in the chapter of the book as he tried to help a friend deal with the pain of separation that stuck me this morning.  He said "We all got things under our skin.  Everybody does.  Like a glass sliver. Can't see nothin' there, but it works its way in deeper until it gets to festerin' and hurts so that we are ready just to cut the whole thing out."  Yep I guess I would have to agree with Lawrence.  I think at some time of our lives each and everyone of us has a glass sliver that has to be cut out or the festerin' gets real back and infection sets in.  If not taken car of the infection can kill us.  A shot while later Lawrence responds to David who has just said his wife  fell out of love with him, " David, you talk 'bout love like it a hole.  Somethin' you can fall in and out of."  David responds, "Isn't it?" Lawrence answers,  "That ain't love at all, just squirrel fever.  Just a storm of emotion....Real love ain't that way.  It's more like a tree or plant or somethin'....Grows if you mind it.  But it takes work and sacrifice.  No one stand back of a neglected tree and watch it die and say, 'Guess that tree just ain't suppose to live.'  Only a fool would talk like that.  But people   do it all the time with their love."

Maybe not God found here, but maybe a message I need to hear. 

IT'S INTERESTING....

So what's interesting might ask.  Well of course a lot of things are.  Tonight, for me, I am finding it interesting all the things in my life that I at one time thought were important enough to save. Things such as old calendars, old DayTimers, half used spiral notebooks, clothes decades out of date, tiny scraps of paper and fabric, old greeting cards that celebrated holidays and love, report cards, pictures from nursery walls, and the list goes on.  Some of these things may have some use still in them such as the old clothes, but they certainly won't do anything to raise my self image; or the scraps of paper and fabric but I have enough left over tiny scraps do I really need them all?  Some of the items like the calendars and DayTimers provide a small window into my past activities such as it was March of 2002 that I broke my left arm during a stage practice of Gypsy, but most of the entries are rather mundane and even more of the pages are blank. Old report cards????  I have mine and each of the kids.  WHY?  As for the cards.  I guess I kept them because someone once told me that when you get down and feeling sad its nice to have past greeting cards to pull and remind yourself of the good times and love people had for you.  Well some times that works other times.......not so much.
So why do we keep so much?  I don't believe I am the only one who does.  If I was people wouldn't moan about having to clear out a relative's home after they pass on.  So I continue on my quest to sort through a life time of memories and accumulations and I do my best to determine what is truly important and what is just stuff.  The stuff goes and a lot has gone.  The truly important stuff is savored and then put back on the shelf.  I doubt I will ever get down to 100 items like some minimalists achieve, but I will reduce the detritus of my life considerably.  The old framed pictures from the nursery walls are going but the homemade Mother's Day cards with a child's hand prints and those hokey poems are right back in the memory box and there they will remain.