H A P P Y      H O L I D A Y S

 

Are you excited about the holidays? I have to say I am for the first time in a long while. We are busy Christmas shopping, cleaning and (not) baking (which means we are making yummy treats for friends that are not baked!) I am making a couple of presents, also. I love the snow, the music (most of the time), the smells, the sounds...most of all I love knowing that our family will be gathering together. We are an eclectic bunch of people,with a variety of interests, passions and personalities. A rich fabric of varying textures. How amazing! And the fact that we all love each other in spite of our differences is the beauty and miracle of it all.

Friday, November 21, 2008

This whole week I have had my grandma more on my mind than usual. It has been three years since she passed away. Three years this week. Just working in the "older ladies" clothing department at work was enough to send me to tears. My dad called, and we had such a wonderful conversation. Just talking about everything going on in both our lives. He said he knew we had snow, because he has Beaver Falls weather programmed onto his home page. That made me feel special! I decided to do something positive to honor the memory of my grandma. Yesterday Bethany helped me display my grandma's kitchenware, dishes in my kitchen. I even bought a curtain to compliment the orange/yellow theme. It feels so homey, having her things surround me while I chop veggies and make tea. I miss her hugs and her smile and the way her whole body would shake when she laughed. I know her spirit lives on, and she is with me every day. How grateful I am for her solid presence in my life when I was growing up. She was a rock to me. I miss you grandma!

Thurs. Oct. 30, 2008

Today. My new mantra is "less is more." 

Let me share a favorite quote from an author I recently discovered, Jon Kabat-Zinn. " Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more. "

And another gem of insight from Thoureau: "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen...In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and the thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, Simplify."

These past few months have been times of reducing, simplifying, down scaling. For me, less is more is revealed in the following ways: less cooking / more nutrients, less processed foods/ more whole foods, less weight/ more room in my clothes, less junk/more room for what matters, less clutter/more open space, less rules/more room to become,less judgemental/ more freedom to love, less spending/ more money, less religion/more relationship, less condemnation/ more blessing others...I will add more as I think of it. Right now, that is enough.

What can you have more of if you choose to have less of the "lower" things in life?