About two weeks ago, my husband and I were headed to the airport for a trip to Nashville. I decided to stop for gas about four miles before the MN border. As we were getting back in our car, we noticed a young girl who appeared to be hitchhiking with a dog. We discussed the situation and decided that if we saw her again, we would give her a ride.
So as we approached the freeway ramp, there she was. I pulled the car over, and we asked where she was going. Her reply was anywhere in the St. Paul/Mpls area. I opened the trunk to put in her backpack, and the dog jumped right in, too. She got him out of the trunk, and they both got in the backseat.
We discovered her name was Kara (sp?), and the dog was Deter. It was a German shepherd she had gotten as a puppy while in California. She was originally from Philadelphia and had been on the road for quite some time. She had come from California most recently and was headed back that way before winter. We were amazed by a number of things.....she was able to travel with a dog which gave her both companionship and protection...this was a lifestyle that was chosen, not forced.....no harm had come to her (even after riding with truckers).....and last but not least, she had ridden freight trains for most of her journeys.
I am so glad we were able to help in a small way and glad I was able to see that not every one chooses the safe, easy route through life. There are all kinds of different ways of life, and if they differ from our own, that does not make them wrong.
Happy Trails to You!!
Thought for the day: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I.....I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Robert Frost
This past weekend our granddaughter, Aria, came for a visit. Her parents were attending a wedding so we got the pleasure of spending some time with her.
She didn't cry or get upset when they drove away so I knew she trusted me.
Her first order of business was to check out the whole house to see what might be of interest. We quickly discovered which doors would need to stay shut and what items to put away.
My husband asked a couple times, is this really happening? This was in response to seeing such a cute little person walking all over the place.
Some of the things we did............
Visited the railroad museum
Walked down to the creek
Went to the park
She carried all my potatoes into the living room
Enjoyed our dog, Maxine
Snuggled
Snuggled some more
It was a wonderful time, and I sure hope she visits often.
Thought for Today: There are places in your heart you do not even know exist until you love a child.
I have not been blogging lately because I was having difficulty opening my post page on our computer, but now it works!
Today marks one year since leaving the workplace. It does not seem possible that I reached that goal. Now I have a new one....to make it until the end of the year. Seems like if I break it up into time frames, it is easier for me to sustain. Of course, my sincere hope is that I can meet the goal of never having to return to the formal workplace.
I am just now starting to relax more about being home and enjoying it to the fullest.
Thought for today: Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill
This post is a difficult one to do because it is about my sister, Lynda. She passed away on June 6th, two days before her 69th birthday. It involved a series of events...heart attack, triple bypass, stroke and ultimately arrhythmia that they were unable to stabilize due to all the other health issues.
So she has been gone from this world for 16 days, and I just cannot wrap my mind around it. She is in my thoughts several times a time and during the night if I happen to wake up. I look at her photo and remember all the life events we shared together, and my heart aches to realize we will not be sharing the future. Even though our phone calls were infrequent, I want to pick up the phone and call her. While driving through the twin cities on my way to Brainerd yesterday, I wanted so badly to be able to stop by for a visit and asked myself why I didn't visit more often. We get so busy with our own lives that we forget to make time for those people we care so much about.
Her memorial service was beautiful with music by our brothers and sister-in-law. I shared memories and thoughts as well as my nephew, Lynda's friend and both of our brothers. There were moments of tears and laughter and an outpouring of love from the many friends and family that loved her so much. I am fairly sure she had no idea how many people's lives she had touched and how dearly she was loved. Lynda was a person who always put others first, almost to a fault. She would make sure every one else was taken care of before giving a thought to herself. She did not want any attention and so I attempt to comfort myself with the belief that she would not have wanted to live as an invalid and have others fuss over her. However, I needed her here longer as did her entire family, especially her three young grandsons that she adored.
I feel like life should have stopped longer to honor our great loss. How dare the sun continue to shine or rain continue to fall? My lovely sister is gone, and even Mother Nature should have given pause.
Oh, Lynda. I love and miss you so much and don't want to let you go!
Thought for the day: Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
This past week I celebrated my 54th birthday. I was thinking back and wondering how many birthdays I actually remember and decided it was three.
On my 18th birthday I graduated from high school so that is memorable. When I turned 30, I was on my way home from Nashville with my parents and sister. When we woke up that morning my dad was a bit cranky and totally forgot it was my birthday which caused me to cry because not only was I 30 but he forgot. The next one I very clearly remember was my 50th when my amazing daughters arranged a surprise party and invited several women who had been important at different times in my life. I was totally and completed surprised, and it felt like a wonderful episode of "This Is Your Life".
Guess I am not a big birthday person in that I don't make a big deal of it nor do I profess to remembering every one's birthday or recognizing it. It did seem amazing that out of 54 years, I only remembered three birthdays. In doing some research about birthdays, this is what I found.
It was believed that one could be helped by good spirits or pursued by evil spirits on one's birthday. For this reason, people would gather around the birthday person to offer protection from evil spirits. The Greeks believed that everyone had a protective spirit that guarded over his birth and protected him during his life. This spirit, the Greeks believed, "had a mystic relation with the god on whose birthday the individual was born".
So my conclusion after thinking about birthdays for the past few days is this: the main reason we do it is to honor a person and to make them feel like they are cared for and loved. It is a day set aside to simply recognize our specialness as a distinct human being.
Quote for the day: A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun. Enjoy the trip. – By Author Unknown
Yesterday while doing yoga, I heard a loud thud. I got up to look out the glass doors to see what happened. I saw a bird twitching on the ground and realized it had flown into the glass. It stopped moving, and I went back to my yoga mat. For the next few minutes, I kept checking out the glass to see if perhaps it had just been stunned and would soon fly away. However, that did not happen; the only movement was the wind rustling the feathers.
So having the contemplative mind that I do, I wondered why I was so touched by this occurrence. It came to me that what happened to this bird is the same as what can happen to any living being, including we homo sapiens. It was probably just seconds before that the bird was making a stop at one of my feeders to grab a quick bite to eat. He wasn't even enjoying the moment because the mind was focused on the next move. Well, it turns out that the next move was the last. This happens to deer, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, etc as they simply try to cross a road to get to their next task in life. It happens to humans as we rush from one place to the next and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This leads to the thought of how important it is to live in the present moment because in reality, it is all we have. We would be so much more at peace if we could reach a place of living in the present moment and enjoying it. Instead, we rush through each moment just to arrive at the next task or event and some times that next one never comes.
We can't change the past nor predict the future, but we can live right now. It's all we have.
Thought for the day: The meeting of two eternities, the past and future....is precisely the present moment.
-- Henry David Thoreau
In previous postings, I have mentioned that Sundays have a different feel for me. They are steeped in memories. Now I am realizing that Saturdays feel that way, too. So I have been contemplating why do weekends feel so unique. In fact, it's more than just a feeling; it is as if I am transported. There is no similar occurrence for weekdays.
On Saturdays I can feel the bustle of chores being done, and a special lunch being made. My mother worked full time so weekends were different; she was around and busy. Sundays, of course, were all about the weekly trek to the small Lutheran church which included its own cast of characters and always a wonderful Sunday dinner. On the way home from church, my dad always swung over to the mailbox to grab the Sunday paper. While my mother put the finishing touches on dinner, my dad would watch the late morning news shows. In later years, we might have gone out to eat on Sundays. These rituals began as a small child and continued until my mother passed away at age 78. I still spent time with my father, but things were never the same. My children became a part of this routine, too.
Until recently, I couldn't really understand why were these things so ingrained in my brain (to the point of almost being there). It is finally clear that those people and experiences were the longest in duration of any others in my life. They became in my mind a place of security and longevity.
This brings me to why I named the post "Mountain Pose." I do yoga several times a week in my home, and each exercise begins with that pose and returns often to it. Mountain Pose is a place of grounding, strength and well being. It's simple but profound. Your legs are planted on the Earth, the chest and head are slightly elevated, and you stand strong and secure. Now I make the connection between that special period of time in my life and this pose. My parents, the people of that community and all the experiences associated with it were my "mountain pose." One by one those people and those times have been wrested from my life and now at the age of almost 54, I have to come to terms with that and learn to look back with gratitude and fondness. It can never be recreated. I can't join a local Lutheran church and make Sundays dinners and expect it to be the same.
I suspect that weekends will always have a different feel; that will not end. It is nice to come to an understanding of why.
Thought for the day: Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss
