a quiet mind

i've been contemplating meditation lately.  not so much weighing out the pros and cons, seeing as how there are no cons that I am aware of, but considering the commitment... finding a starting point and fully dedicating myself to that moment each day.  probably in the morning before the chaos of life rolls in, in the form of a rousing two year old.  i even had my yoga instructor privately guide me through a meditation during our last practice.  it was elevating and soothing and wonderful.  "i want this every day," i told her.  so what a coin-ki-dink that i should run across the following in my latest issue of self magazine.  i really look forward to their last-page tidbits.

we talk about the time we spend sitting, thinking and breathing in a guilty way.  as if the absence of action implies a lack of accomplishment.  but doing nothing is doing something.  by emptying your head of your usual to-dos, you create space for new ideas and experiences.  your mission this month: be still.  you'll build the launch pad for your next adventure.

i'm pretty sure this was a sign.  hello morning mediation!

love.

relevant.

i love the daily love.  it speaks to me.  as if the writers have a direct tap to my internal journal (ha!  "internal journal".  i'm a poet and didn't no it.)  and today's post was no different.    it was like a gong banging on my computer screen... to the tune of a negative co-worker.  and i figure, what's relevant for me might just be relevant for someone else too.  so here it is:


Those that challenge you the most are also your greatest teachers. Thank them, for they are the ones that call you to live your highest potential.
They are the opportunity for you to face yourself, your fears and those parts of you that you don’t like, for they will expose it.


They are the opportunity to see how you stop loving and to love bigger.


They invite you to live the books, your prayers and your spirituality.


Often when we are faced with a challenging individual, we get angry. We might defend our point, want to fight, be righteous, judge or collapse in fear.


Most of all those that challenge us, give us the opportunity to love.


But we must first shift our perception, how we view the situation and that person.


Here are some steps:


1 -Shift: See that person/situation as a gift. They are the opportunity for you to grow and love more.


2 – Let go: Give up being right and commit to being FREE. Nothing/No one is worth your happiness or peace. Life is way too short.


3 – Realize: They are reflecting something for you to see, a part of yourself that you need to own, an old wound that you get to heal and let go.


4 – Responsibility: Take the focus off of them, take responsibility and learn your lesson. Embrace it. Graduate from the experience and move on.


5 - Release: Accept the person exactly as they are. Perhaps that might mean you will need to let them go from your life or shift the dynamics of your relationship. Stop fighting what they are.


6 – Communicate: Either communicate with them directly if appropriate or simply bless them and let them go within your own heart. Since everything is energy and we are all interconnected, the good vibes that you send that person will affect them.


7 – Appreciate: Acknowledge your growth and learning. Focus on what you received, and the person you became as a result, rather than what was taken.


Remember: When someone attacks you, they are in a lot of pain. And even though it is directed at you, it most often isn’t about you. It isn’t personal, even though it seems that way and they might even feel that way.


You can choose to fight fire with fire, but this only creates more devastation. When someone attacks you, they want to engage you in a fight. If you attack back, you are now caught up in a vicious cycle.


Even if you win the fight… no one really wins. Let go. Focus on freedom and resolution.


It takes two people to fight. When you don’t engage the attack energy, soon your adversary will be left fighting with her/himself. Then the energy will dissipate.


If you drop to the level of your “attacker”, you perpetuate the cycle of endless negativity. Your “attacker” will try to use your energy to keep a war going. But if you don’t engage, then there is no resistance. They will have no fuel to keep fighting you with.


If someone gives you a gift, but you decline to accept it, to whom does the gift belong? It still belongs to the other person!


Rise above it. Disengage. Step to the side. Redirect. Live your freedom.


-- Kute Blackson



Preach on, Daily Love!

spreading light

Surround yourself with positive people – positive energy is infectious. When we surround ourselves with positive people their energy transfers to us as well – remember when a candle lights another candle it doesn’t lose its flame, it makes the room brighter.


-- Priya Sher via The Daily Love

No place like home

You know how much I love Charleston, right?  Refer here if you ever had any doubt! 

I got the chance to spend the day exploring my favorite cobblestone streets when my sister and two nephews came down for the weekend.  Considering they came to visit in May, i'm a little late on posting but who's counting?!  While the Dads played golf out on Kiawah Island (SO boring) I could think of no better place to take the boys than Waterfront Park.  A true Charleston gem - waterfront swings dangling from wooden arbors, cruise ships, sailboats, tool-arounds and the like all whizzing by, play-friendly water fountains and also the kinds that we just admire, grassy fields, pebble walkways draped with old oak trees, and the glistening Charleston Harbor.  Perfection! 

Man, I love this place!

of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother. - lin yutang

yesterday i....

- scored some serious snuggle time with my pillow and tucker while hubby took care of sully.  sleeping in 'til 9am... delightful

- woke to the smell of bacon (and a feast of other foods)

- got big morning hugs from my favorite little guy in the whole world

- also got 4 sweet cards and 2 thoughtful texts

- soaked up glorious sunshine and cool breezes all day

- was visited by my stepson

- did glitter crafts with the boys on the back porch after breakfast

- savored 2 solo hours at home with my coffee

- went flower shopping

- did a little landscaping

- strolled to the neighborhood pond with hubby, sully, and the fishing pole at dusk

- enjoyed lots of laughing

- even more "i love you's"

- and, for dinner, pigged out on my favorite burger in the world: five guys!

life is good. 

happy mother's day to all!

forgive. be kind. create. be happy. do good. give your best.

"People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered; forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Be kind anyway. What you spend years creating others could destroy overnight: Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it may never be enough: Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God: it was never between you and them anyway."

-- Mother Teresa



hippity hoppity easter's on its way

i dyed easter eggs with sully yesterday.  7 cups with 7 colors all lined in a row and he wanted to dip every egg in every color.  even though all 10 eggs came out in varying shades of puke green with cracks galore, it was the most fun i've ever had decorating easter eggs.  oh the love...

we're heading back to my family home tomorrow.  to celebrate easter.  to celebrate john's birthday.  to hunt easter eggs.  to eat and eat and eat and eat - wagon wheel, cookouts, easter lunch.  mmmmmmm.  i've left a note for the easter bunny so sully is sure to get all of his easter surprises.  it should be a fantastic weekend.  pictures to come.....

happy easter.

what's making me happy

- thoughtful strangers who hold the door.

- the first peek of sunshine after 36 hours of gray and rain.

- sully's hugs. and kisses. and songs. and giggles. and brown eyes.

- homemade chicken salad and mom's spaghetti and meatballs, sitting in my refrigerator.

- the neighborhood mommies that are now my friends.

- witnessing the adoration that my parents feel for my son.

- blooming hydrangeas and fresh herbs that i'll be planting this weekend.

- giving life to dreams. with my husband.

- four friends who are "expecting". two for the first time.

- shopping for easter basket goodies.

- a sister i can laugh with even when the "big c" is staring us down.

- mint and eucalyptus hand soap.

- my stepson getting his second visit from the tooth-fairy.

- salty charleston air.

i want so many of them...

pleasebestill

via this gal

latest soulshine moment...

sunday morning.  early spring sun pouring in through the multitude of windows in the kitchen/breakfast area.  sliding door open, allowing the cool morning breeze to waft through.  buttery-warm waffles out of the oven.  agave nectar to drizzle on top of them...

and sully, randomly belting out his own version of the "abc's".  a solo first!

come closer -

closer.... a little closer.  i have a secret. 


i. love. spring.

even though, technically, it's not spring yet - but who's getting technical around here anyway - we did spring forward this past weekend.  and, not to gloat, but the weather has been a dream here in charleston for the past week. 


so to celebrate the glorious-ness, my mom and i ventured out to the most ah-mazing nursery - abide a while.  poppies and herbs and hydrangeas, oh my! 

yoga loft

i visited a new yoga studio yesterday and loved it.  loved it for so many reasons but just to name a few...

the coral-colored building nestled on a side street just minutes from my house - who knew summerville had yoga!  early-spring fresh air wafting in and out of all the open doors and windows.  birch hardwood floors.  late afternoon sun peaking through the bamboo shades.  an instructor adept in comfortably adjusting my poses and sweet whisperings that i am "extremely flexible" - a tactic to encourage me into a deeper pose, i'm sure. it worked.  lavender scented eye pillows.  a practice filled with humor - a challenge when you've been squatting in and out of "warrior" poses for 15 minutes.

i could go on and on but, the thing i loved the absolute most...

the eighty-four year old woman on the mat next to me.  let the number fool you not - she was the most experienced and limber student in the class of 10.  she shared that her practice has extended throughout most of her life.  which i realized on my ride home was long before yoga was the trendy thing to do.  two words: awe inspired.

take the reins

think about what makes you happiest - the one
thing guaranteed to get your heart racing and a big
grin spreading across your face. got it? good.
now do that thing.  yes, today.  taking control of your
life is about knowing what you want and going after
it without hesitation.  you don't need permission.
you just need to know you deserve to be happy.

-self magazine; march, 2011

love, love, and more LOVE

happy valentine's day.

i'm not sure about all you others out there in the world but here in charleston it could not be a more beautiful day to celebrate the day marked for love.

i know there are many naysayers in the universe who call this holiday a cliche, only born to fill the pockets of every greeting card and candy industry tycoon stretching the globe.  but i say...

tish.tosh!

i am glad that, in a world that becomes more cynical with each passing day, we still have these capsules of time that dissolve an otherwise mundane day into something a little more beautiful.  special.  fun.  we all need a little more "fun" in our lives. 

and you can't play the "i'm single and depressed" card with me because i've been that single and depressed girl on valentine's day - wishing i had a man and wallowing in my own self pity.  to avoid feeling un-sexy on the sexiest of holidays, my friends and i would protest.  "anti-valentine's, valentine's day". we made anti-valentine's cd mixes.  put on our best pushups.  went out.  toasted drink after drink to being single and fabulous.  and in an attempt to not celebrate, we ended up celebrating anyway.  those scattered, single, valentine's will go down as some of the greatest nights of my life.

so to all you wet blankets out there (yes, i said it) i say: get out of your own head, go buy a box of lindt truffles, sit on the couch with your love tonight, and indulge.  and if you don't have a love.... your friend... your dog... heck, by yourself (sometimes that's my favorite way to enjoy a good box of chocolate).   or go out with your drinking buddies.  drink one too many and get silly.  pop a bottle of champagne for the hell of it and let the bubbles do their job.  throw darts at a picture of cupid with another angry friend. 

something.  anything!

use this day to remind everyone you care about - friend, girlfriend, mom, dad, sister, brother, cousin, cousin's friend martha, or whomever - that you care about them.

and enjoy it for what it is, for tomorrow it will be gone.  c'est la vie!

----

"if you really want to be happy, nobody can stop you"
- sister mary tricky

a whirlwind of days

so many many things to blog about since my last post, only a week and a half ago. last friday, the family packed up and headed for a midnight trip - literally - back to my hometown of lancaster. 

saturday morning came early with a mere 4-1/2 hours of sleep under our belts.  but we made the short trek out to buford, south carolina to cheer my  nephew on at his basketball game.  that's him, way down there... number 15.  we got to spend some good quality time with my sister, brother in law, dad, and my nephew brooks, who was also celebrating his first birthday.  mom stayed home to get the house prepped for the birthday party that afternoon.  riley's team won and it was so awesome to be a part of that. 

john and i also had a pretty good "lol" moment.  as we were walking out of the rec. center, john was complaining that he smelled baby "puke".  i reminded him that the birthday boy had spit up during the game and maybe it was on his shirt.  as we got closer to the car, i began to smell it.  and soon enough we were overpowered.  near gagging, trying to convince john to ditch his shirt and making what i'm sure was a spectacle, we hear this guy from across the parking lot yell, "it's the turkey farm down the road."  now if only blogspot could verbalize the accent.  this guy, who john and i had chuckled at all morning for having his whole family (including the wife) decked out in camo, was the most country feller i've ever heard speak.  it sounded a little more like, "eeets da turrrrkey form down tha rooooad".  we laughed not only at his accent but that he probably hopped in his mud flapped, oversized tires, ford truck and said "stupid city people.  never smelled turkey shit before!"

after a little shopping around town with my sister and some golf for the guys, the entire family came over to celebrate with a birthday party for 2 very special boys - sully (2) and brooks (1).  here are some highlights....

sully's homemade birthday cake... (elmo was courtesy of this gal)

brooks had an adorable dr. seuss cake, made by a local lady in lancaster

sporting his new "2" shirt, specially made by this gal

and checking out his balloons

sully decided that he wanted his cake for dinner.  and on birthdays, we get what we want -



this is what i like to call "drunk on cake"...

sully and mommy

brooks was not a happy camper.  i'm sure he's praying to the toy gods that he never sees this hat again.

so while he was getting squared away, we sang "happy birthday" to sully

and then brooks was ready for his cake.  testing the waters -

getting more into it -

definitely got the hang of it -

the boys had a "few" presents to open.  more like a mound!

and then it was time to crash from all the fun!

with sunday being sully's actual birthday, we decided to take him to the columbia zoo on the way back to charleston - he has been obsessed with "phants" (elephants) lately.  it was a gorgeous, 70 degree, january sunday - that's south carolina for you.  i'm sad to say i don't really have any pictures to post from our excursion because sully was somewhat of a pickle.  it took us two hours of walking around to discover the secret - fish and m&m's.  so next time we go to the zoo, we know to start with that!  ;)

after a quick visit to the hospital to see john's granny, we headed back home as the sun was setting.  sully crashed and i made a quick dash to redbox so john and i could watch "the town" which we've been dying to see.  didn't disappoint!  during the movie, i managed to whip out a batch of birthday cookies for sully to take to daycare on monday and we were all snoring by 10:30.

tuesday brought another trip to lancaster, as my dad checked into the hospital for a triple bypass.  you expect hospital waiting rooms to be exhausting, in the boring kind of way - we had our moments of worry, don't get me wrong - but with 12 members of my family all crammed together it was mostly laughs and good memories.  dad came through his surgery beautifully, ignoring the big scar down the middle of his chest.  i'm sure i will blog about this experience at a later date, but for now he is well and recovering in the hospital until early next week.

by the time i got back to charleston on wednesday, just in time for sully's two-year checkup, i felt like i had been pummeled by one of the zoo lions.  but it took nothing more than a running hug from sully, after 36 hours of worry and wait, to cure me.

can you say YUM

bakerella.com

replenishing time

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds. It dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."  -- Anais Nin


i found this is an old blog post of mine, circa 2008.  reminds me to go home and water the "plant".

goals

I found this list buried deep in the piles of things I have written through the years.  It is an unfinished list of goals that I made about 5 years ago.  It's funny (and rewarding) to see what I have already accomplished. 

•  travel to Paris
• author a children's book
• buy a home (with a mandatory swing on my mandatory screened-in porch)
• watch Carrie Bradshaw on the Big Screen
• open a boutique in the Charleston area and become my own boss
• plant and successfully nurture a flower garden
• return the favor on all of the wonderful ways in which my parents have contributed to my life
• marry a wonderful man who makes me laugh (and then........)
• grow a big, beautiful pregnant belly
• learn to speak a new language (English - check, Spanish - check)
• sky-dive
• master the guitar
• wake up early enough to watch the sunrise on the beach
• take a road trip with no destination, just a tank of gas and lots of time
• kiss in the rain (without worrying that my makeup will run)
• re-discover that wonderful little body I lived in at 21, that I didn't appreciate until it was gone
• change someone's life for the better
• make a sizable contribution to a worthy cause

This list is still relevant to the dreams that I have.  Other than changing the "boutique" to a photography studio, I would say it is spot-on.  Finding this helped me to realize that I have accomplished a few sizable goals in the past 5 years, but there's still alot left on my short list that I need to get crackin' on.

things i'm loving

I'm a shopaholic.  This we know.  And I think that one of my problems is this - when I see something that gives me the warm and fuzzies (and there are many), I feel an urgency to have it/buy it/go there.  Right then.  No waiting.  And I go home (or log off my computer) and obsess think about it.  To a point of ridiculousness.  I have concluded that my obssession longing stems from two sources (1) a fear that the thing will be gone when i'm "ready" to make it mine or (2) anxiety that dementia will set in and i'll forget the item all together only to come across it at a later date and die right there on the spot when I realize I lived my life without it?  Don't know.  And since I don't see a rainfall of money in my near future making (1) slighlty impossible (frown) I will establish a resolution for (2).  A list.  To not forget.

hand stitched christmas ornament
this book and that book for sully
and this book for me
la samanna villas
shop mamie
special occasion banners
and these too
one, two, and three elements of design that i would just fall right over dead to decorate a baby girl's nursery in.  no better color combo for a little girl than pink and green!
these sweet treat supplies
way expensive, i know.  but just so beautiful, this scarf
and a more in-my-ballpark scarf


i'm sure i'll be back with more some other day.  so long for now...

visit:

breathing room.  an inspiring and long-awaited dream of my bf, miss cari d.  she launches her new yoga studio with a grand opening this saturday in portland, maine. 
go!

just loving this picture

of my mister and my sister, aka. sully and aunt p.p.

she was sporting her presh cropped haircut meant to be a warm-me-up for what my nephew calls her new "bald as a baby's butt" head.

and these of sully's christmas number 2...

 
he got to open one present from mommy and daddy
on the morning of christmas eve.


and apparently one wasn't enough...

we found him digging for more just before lunch.

with daddy on christmas morning.

waiting to see what santa brought.

and santa brought him a chalkboard.

with authentic santa message and signature.  :)

and a carolina football.

santa would have gotten out cheap had he only

known this would be sully's favorite gift.

but he did love the tractor too.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE GREIDERS!