So many options!

Today I saw several options at the store: Crackers are being made with letters on them so you can play Scrabble with your crackers; Hostess Snowballs now come in white, pink, and vibrant blue; Crackers come in an array of flavors similar to packaged cereal now; The cereal isle in the grocery store still displays hundreds of cereal options; the shampoos and hair items are countless... crazy! Options in foods, in clothing, in toys, in electronics, in reading material, in hobbies, in home furnishings and yard furnishings, in vehicles, ... options smattered in front of our eyes all day every day!

I want to take a nap. I need a break. I think when I go to sleep I'll be wearing a sleeping mask... it's really cute. I got the black one with a blue small print on it, satin material, some quilting to the eye mask, and an elastic band. Oh, and the print is only on one side and the other side is black satin and shaped to contour my face. !!!

Motivation, Motivation, Motivation

Yikes, I need some internal motivation! I live with a toss-up between two problems:

First- I have so many things to do that I want to do them all, and finish them all. However, it's impossible to do them all so then I need to chose only a few, and that's too difficult. Then, after I realize it's impossible to do everything that needs to be done, I'm discouraged that I can't do them and I can't seem to get started on the impossible. Sometimes I start something, switch to another, and am discouraged that I'm not finishing my tasks. As confusing as that sounds is as confusing as it feels!

Next- When there isn't any big reason to get projects finished, or even a reason to make something better than mediocre, it's easy to do less just because I can. However, this is a trap! The slower I go, the less I do, the worse my situation becomes because "things in motion stay in motion; things at rest stay at rest". If I were to give into the feelings to do less, that makes my first problem so much worse!

So here I stand at a crossroad. Do I climb the mountain- the mountain that is so high I cannot see the peak? Or do I sit at the base of the mountain and decide to do nothing but look at his mountain? ... What does Jesus want me to do? ... Ah yes, my Jesus.

Jesus comes beside me and shows me my mountain of dreams-- how steep, how lofty, and so time-consuming. He shows me another hill, the hill for today. With consistency I could climb a hill like this every day! With faith I could enjoy the journey daily!

I don't need to sit anymore, my Jesus will go with me. He's a great friend. I can talk to Him and get clear direction as we go. I can relax with Him and enjoy our journey. I can be myself and feel accepted! Why would I want to sit any longer when I can journey ahead with Jesus, who by the way, has offered to carry my burdens besides!

No more indecision of the day! The best motivation is to take the Hill of Today that Jesus shows me and walk with Him. Today is going to be a great day!!

Have you asked Jesus to live in your heart? Is Jesus your faithful friend and daily guide? Just ask Him; He'd love to be there for you! Jesus has all the time in the world to make your day more clear and more peaceful...

Baking Heals the Soul

Even if you don't know how to "cook", bake, saute, grill, boil, etc., it's a great thing to do because it makes you feel something. Hopefully you aren't just frustrated when you're finished! Start simply- don't try anything super complicated- and work up from there. Ask someone that can explain it to you. Clean up after yourself as you go along. When you're finished, hopefully, you have a sense of fufillment!

Just part of living, sure, but isn't it worth a little effort to make the eating part of life wonderful?

Grumpiness

I ran into Mr. Grumpy today. He didn't have a very good reason for being grumpy... which is partly why that crusty attitude is considered grumpy! "Is that fun?" I wonder. "Do you get anything you want from being Mr. Nasty?" I can't imagine anything positive coming out of being grumpy.

... Yet... I suppose it's a natural emotion, like being happy for no reason at all. I suppose it's fair that the people who see the glass as half empty would generally settle into grumpiness. ? So where does thankfulness come into play? Only when we feel like being thankful?

There is always, always, always something to be thankful about! There's no such thing as a glass half empty! We should be thankful there's anything in it at all. Or be thankful we have a glass. Eh? See the point? To say it's half empty would be to expect more. That's where we're wrong.

So, Mr. Grumpy, Change your ways!! I've no tolerance for that crusty attitude!!!

Yesturyear

I remember when I was a young girl, my grandmother would give my sister and me a thick stalk of rhubarb. We'd sit on the wooden steps of the back porch and dip the rhubarb in our personal little bowl of sugar. Yes, sugar. It was so sweet and tart-- it was so rememberable!

I also remember her hot and cold water was plumbed from the down stairs to the upstairs via two pipes in the kitchen. Whenever possible I'd climb the two pipes until I could touch the ceiling... but that's another story.

The simple pleasures of yesturyear... the squeazing a snapdragon and making it talk; playing hop-scotch on the sidewalk with chalk-drawn squares; kids teaching kids to ride a two wheeled bicycle with no training wheels; catching salamanders; keeping turtles for pets until they ran away in the grass; living slower and with less rules and less gadgets... I think it was grand!

I've supplied my children with plenty of chalk and they've made pictures and hop-scotch boards; we let our son teach our daughter to ride her bike without training wheels (took three tries!); we've caught salamanders; we've made real lemonaide from lemons, sugar and water, and today my girls will try rhubard and sugar. ... their own bowl of sugar...

If I Had A Million Dollars

If I had a million dollars... I'd hire me a maid! It's not that I dislike cleaning; on the contrary, I think it's relaxing and satisfying. I just find it more rewarding to make things, build things, invent things, write things, manage things, embellish things :), create and encourage! I am not an octopus that can write and wash windows at the same time, and I cannot sew and fold laundry at the same time, and I cannot make delicious foods and dust shelves at the same time, and who's going to wipe off light switches and door knobs? ... ugh!

So if you want to gift me with a super great gift-- I'd choose a maid. :D
Until then, please pick up after yourself. Rest assured, I still clean. Slovenliness is disgusting! Tidy is overrated, but cleanliness is next to Godliness. :)

You be You, I'll be Me

I believe we all have the need to feel different, unique. We all experience this feeling the same way, however, and the only way we are truly unique is when we realize this and let that feeling go, so the Holy Spirit can use us for God's purposes. We will then be unique because He uses each person as He designed them. When we "try" to be unique, we are then too much of our own thoughts- the same thoughts as all people by nature- and we lose our uniqueness!

Recently I've been reading a book about Heaven. Heaven is real, as Hell is real, and it's amazing to think how the Earth is a planet, we are on this planet, and God knows each and every one of His believers! Anyway, in Heaven, I want to cook, sew, sing like Selah (it might take 1,000 years of voice lessons), and be a loving manager. Oh, and I'd like to be a potter also. The point is: Am I practicing on Earth, daily, what God will want me to do in Heaven? Oh! Write and draw too! ... I am SO GLAD we'll have an eternity, because there are so many things I want to do for my God!
(I wonder if we played Dominoes with Jesus if He'd always win?)

Today is the perfect day to focus on living for Christ. A perfect day, with so many options in the day!, how can I best use this 24 hours?
... I better start with a prayer... ask for focus... and fully live.

True Love

I believe that Love is a choice, not a feeling. Every day we wake up and we can decide if we will love the person we're with, or turn our feelings toward something/someone else. We can choose to love our children whole-heartedly and unconditionally. We can choose to hold grudges too, but what would that gain us? The same goes for parents, really... we can love or resist.

So when did it get so difficult for people to stay married for 30, 50, 60 years? Do we wake up and decide that there's something more important to us than our family? Is there anything else more valuable than true love? I think not!

There is something that could deter the desire to pursue true love-- perhaps "inconsideration". Are we considerate to remember the other person? Are they understanding our feelings because we carefully and calmly explained ourselves? I think we each need to own up and be responsible to connect and stay connected!

What, in this entire world that God created and Satan destroys, could we possibly love more than the peace that passes all understanding? Besides, since Jesus saved us, we're "family" to God- the creator of the universe. Imagine! What a GREAT family to be devoted to!! I love the thought that I'm a Child of God and HE is always loving me... unconditionally, with consideration, and wholeheartedly. ... And who am I that I shouldn't pass on that same love, daily...

Reality

The reality is that the Gross-Factor is really high when cleaning the shower. Yuck. It's not the hay bits or the dirt that make the gross factor so high, it's the hair conditioners that stick to the sides of the shower that gross me out. ... So I was thinking...

Wouldn't it be great if we could shower under gentle waterfalls, Grandma made the bread by hand, and our children collected fruit for us to eat? Ah yes... glorious. Then again, How many times did they wish that THEY had indoor plumbing? Wouldn't a life like that get redundant and we'd dream up ideas for entertainment- and ways to preserve food in a cold box so we could stock up food for a few days and enjoy more time with "better living"?

Okay, so maybe the waterfall showers is a little overrated-- but I still dislike cleaning our bathrooms. yuck.

wham-

Driving home from work, I panicked and braked while a long white truck was pulling out in front of me... very slowly. wham. My first car accident wasn't a personal tragedy, but my car was totalled. (I loved that car.)

I think about how many times in life each person gets a "wham"- "out of nowhere"- "where did that come from?" experience. Say, for example, a cold or the flu. wham. It hits you square between the eyes-- and suddenly you cherish your ability to breathe, you remember the days without pain, etc. Even after the cold/flu is gone, you remember for a few days how wonderful it is to breathe again! Then as we go about our everyday life, we forget quickly how many great miracles are working for us each day.

We had a rental car for a few weeks and then my wonderful husband found us a car. Not just any car, but a better car than the first car. Now it's hard to remember how many things needed fixing in the old car... now it's difficult to remember exactly what the dashboard looked like... My everyday life is moving me along quickly.

All this to say that I had my first car accident? Nope. All this to say, "Don't forget to stop and smell the roses." Just because it isn't a problem right now doesn't mean we need to take it for granted! Give someone you love a hug; smell your beverages and food; taste fully; feel the weather; notice your environment and take in the sounds, sights and smells; give generously;
"Act kindly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).