At Peace with Time

Do you remember those days when you were in grade school (elementary school for all you younger readers) when the hours would seem to drag by ever so slowly?  Time itself seemed to stand still? Then you graduated from high school and the minutes seemed to fly by like nobody's business?!   And to amp that up a bit, you get married and have children right away. As you witness the exponential growth of your child, that itself becomes more of a tangible marker of how fast the days, months and years truly do march on.


None of us will live forever on this earth. None of us will hold onto our youthful radiance as much as any one of us might like.  In fact, it is fleeting. Fleeting? We have all heard that saying, Beauty is only skin deep. For I myself, have seen some of the most beautiful people, then when I had the opportunity to witness their personality and attitude towards mankind my eyes readjusted and saw them more clearly - ugly, morally repugnant, repulsive.  Then I have seen some that our culture would not give a second glance, to be some of the most beautiful people I have ever met.


Once I hit the big 40 I started  to notice much change in my appearance.  Looser skin. Wrinkles. Age spots. More gray hair.  All of which are temporal. I can say without much reservation that I am at peace with most of this.   To some degree I am even at peace with my gray hair, I once let all of my beautiful auburn hair dye grow out to reveal all of the shinny silver strands that hid beneath.  I may be embarking that again soon....  but for now I am back to enjoying the deep browns in my hair.   Do I want to be youthful? Mmmm. I think as a near 50 year old woman, I don't seek to be youthful. I seek to be energetic, fruitful and at peace with the stage of life I am in.  I seek to be healthy, wise and useful. I seek to be active and always growing.  I seek to be involved and I seek friendships with people of all ages. I learned a lesson from a dear lady years ago... having friends who are not only in our age group, but also a bit younger than us will help to "keep" our minds young.

We (as a culture) are constantly taking selfies.  Is there anything wrong with taking photos of ourselves, no, I am not saying that at all.  But we have become a culture where everything revolves around staying youthful, being youthful and in the meantime discarding older people as obsolete. No wonder a large number of those starting to see aging show up on their physical bodies are scrambling to attain youth at whatever cost.

It is strange as I think back over my childhood. My dearest aunt was pretty lively. She was always smiling and always a blessing to be in the presence of.  Oh how I have missed her. It has been almost 25 years since she passed and I can not recall a moment of her discussing her weight, her aging, or her failing body.   She was one of the most beautiful people I knew.  The same goes for my grandmothers - I do not recall either of my grandmothers fussing over their silver adorned heads, their ages spots or even the first wrinkle on their faces.  I like it that way.  I hope I am able to carry on as they did in their aging years, gracefully.

Strange as it is, even though my body is showing signs of age, I find myself at most peace with who I am.  I am sure for me, that has just come with maturity.  Am I unhappy from time to time with my body because my pants fit to tightly...yes. But as a whole, I am at peace with where time has taken me.

As The New Year Rolls Around

In the last days of  2015 and as the new year began, we were walking around in pure bliss. We can hardly wait to have both of them home again with their families!

 I remember when Eric and I first started our little family, I always loved each stage we found ourselves in and felt that nothing was sweeter than raising your own children. Watching them as newborn babes. Listening to them as they began to learn to communicate.  Celebrating their birthdays each year with friends and family surrounding them marking that milestone.  All the time, each season we walk through with them, is the best season. OK.. so some of those seasons were NOT so great. Those teenage years were a challenge to both us and our son's I am sure.  But we survived it!

While they were here, we had three additional pairs of hard working hands to help get trees cut down, and fence preparations done.  

Making Changes

Goals.

Each January comes with a fresh new start for the upcoming 365 days.  With that comes either a list of resolutions of things you will and will not do. Perhaps a list of goals with steps on how to attain the finish line for each of them.  During the first of the year we did some goal setting and it was fantastic!   My favorite oldest daughter, Renee, was recording everyone's spoken words in her planner as we all gathered around and discussed our dreams and goals for the upcoming year.

Seven days ago I, along with Renee, started WHOLE30.    We pretty much just jumped in with both feet and we haven't looked back.   We are already pretty clean eaters, not perfect - but pretty clean.  I have really been enjoying this exciting journey of clean eating this past week and look forward to the upcoming weeks.

The past few days I have had burst of energy and things are getting cleaned around here!  These books were all on a shelf alone in a dark dusty corner in my pantry.  After I pulled them off to relocate them, I couldn't put each one down as I went through the stack. So.. I piled them back up in a neat pile and this is a portion of my books to read this year. Some I have read already, some I have read a portion of and some I have wanted to read for some time now.

Getting things in order is so freeing.  Take a moment each day of this week and purge one room in your house.  I bet you have some things in that one room that you choose to purge that either needs to be thrown in the trash, given to someone who can use them or maybe even sell some of the items on a local for sale list.  Tomorrow I tackle the buffet in the dining area!

*random photo's from my phone

 Interesting plunger handle that we saw at a recent doctor's office visit while using the restroom.

 Oh, my babies. Athena's third litter, she birthed 9 and is raising 9 - successful litter!

 Many "nucs" at our local Bee Master's shop.   This is the day I picked up our 4th hive.

 The big girls love to peck at the sunflower leaves each evening when we bring them snacks from the garden.

 Lucy insist on laying her egg in the barn, in odd places every day... so we let  her (lol).

 Its  me! It is the rare occasion that I like photo's of myself.

 The hedge around our pool area is in full bloom and to me, smells heavenly!

Lunch with my dear husband, the company and food were both excellent! Have a great weekend!

*solace on the surf

Today was a day for solace, and I found my solace amidst loud shrieking children who were all having a great time running in and out of the waves.  The laughter of small children is something I haven't been around in a while, it was wonderful!  The beach was PACKED.

Many young students had driven to the beach for spring break as well.  It was obvious that I was either not at the family friendly beach or they were not at the Belle Glades (the partying beach in Fernandina Beach where I grew up).

The sounds (words) coming out of their mouths didn't bring the same delight as the innocent little children.  I wasn't offended, as I am not offended by curse words. I didn't really like what I heard, didn't want to be a party to it, but I wasn't offended by it. I know that their actions were sinful, so are some of my actions -some I am aware of, some I am not.  I bet it is the same way with them, some things they recognize as "wrong" or sinful, and somethings they don't yet recognize.  I pray that someone in their life is able to LIVE OUT Jesus to them in a real tangible way.

Para sailing seems to be really popular here on the Emerald Coast.  I think I would like to do this one day, but my DH said, "Have fun!"  I guess I wont be para sailing, because I would only want to do this with him.  I am not sure I want to pay the price they are asking anyway.

Crab Island was not terribly busy today, but just you wait! In a month or so from now this area will be crawling with people, boats, jet ski's, floating amusement toys etc.

*foot prints in the sand

About 18 months ago when we knew we were going to be moving to Florida we began making a list of things we wanted in what will ultimately be our retirement home, that is unless God see fit to move us elsewhere.

Some of the things on the list were:
 * close to beach
 * on the water
 * close to DH's work
 * a barn on the property
 * in the rural area
 * a pool
 * land
 * etc....
   

One of the things we finally marked off the list was "on the water". The water front properties that we looked at, whether it be on the bay, intercoastal waterway or other were just to high priced for our pocket books. And while I would have liked to be closer to the beach, being close to DH's work was in conflict with that, but 45 minutes is still close if you ask me. Today I took advantage of that and walked on the beautiful Emerald Coast before dusk.  It was rather windy and cool tonight, but lovely nonetheless!

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand -when I awake I am still with you.  ~Psalm 139:17-18

~Lynnie

*laughter is good for the soul

A good, real, unrestrained, hearty laugh is a sort of glorified internal massage, performed rapidly and automatically.  It manipulates and revitalizes corners and unexplored crannies of the system that are unresponsive to most other exercise methods.  ~Author unknown, from an editorial in New-York Tribune, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren

 Laughter is an instant vacation.  ~Milton Berle

 What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.  ~Yiddish Proverb

 Laughter gives us distance.  It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.  ~Bob Newhart

 Remember, men need laughter sometimes more than food.  ~Anna Fellows Johnston

I know this picture looks a bit crude... and I am sorry, but these two are like brother and sister and they were laughing it up to the highest! 

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. Prov 17:22

*treasure?

Today as I got ready to go out the door into the somewhat brisk weather, I grabbed my black leather jacket that I haven't worn since last winter.  As I put it on, I felt a "treasure" in the front left pocket. Once I had the jacket on, I reached in to see what it was hiding in there since last winter.


Um. Well. I was not thrilled to find a mozzarella cheese stick in my coat pocket!  We use these as treats with Frayja and she obviously wasn't a good girl on this particular day because the treat remained in my pocket for many months. 









And in the other pocket was $5 and some change...

Do you find treasure in your coat pockets like me at the beginning of the new winter season? You never know when you  might need a moldy cheese stick or a few bucks. 

*a new perspective

Face book. Myspace. Twitter. Buzz = Social media, what a misnomer. I have struggled (if I can say it that way) with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and the likes for a while now. I have had an account with all at one point or another. Never really enjoying any of them, don't get me wrong, I enjoy that I was able to keep up with my cousins, my dear friends, etc.  At one point I had several hundred "friends", and when I started thinking.. OK.. I am done with this, I simply narrowed down the people that I naturally chatted with, sent messages to on a regular basis. Then one day, I simply decided that I was done with social media and closed my Facebook account yet once again.  I feel like such venues cause our culture to be the most unsocial generation ever.  WARNING: these are my opinions, feelings and thoughts on this topic.  I have to quote a wise woman in my life regarding Facebook.  These are her thoughts about such venues, she desires to know people, not know about them.  In my mind right up until last night was that FB did more harm that good. I know my thinking is limited.  We read about people, we look into their lives often them unaware - so we AREN'T socializing with them, we read things about their personal lives that perhaps they shouldn't have shared in the first place.  There are so many other examples (in my opinion) why FB is more of a hindrance to our souls than a help.

However last night, I had to step back a bit and rethink my strong opinion. I STILL don't think FB is for me, so I will remain deactivated.  However, last night my husband had to take me to the hospital ER (I am fine) and our youngest son posted on  his FB :prayer needed for my mom etc. He had people across the nation praying for me. I am grateful. He was home alone, afraid, worried, and FB helped him touch some friends & family - it played it intended part- social interactions.  He also used his phone and made a few calls, so with or without FB he would have contacted people he knew he could count on for prayer support- just sayin.

I do not judge people who have FB accounts, we are all challenged in different ways, all have different needs, strengths and weaknesses. For me, FB doesn't play a vital role in my life. I prefer to write notes, personal emails, send packages, and make phone calls to the ones I love. I prefer to be relational and FB is not my choice of method.   Maybe I am just an fuddy duddy?  Maybe. Maybe not.

 Later added:  I guess my biggest "problem" with FB is when people choose to use it to keep themselves feeling connected to other peoples lives and not interacting as they once did.  We can find out about what is going on in peoples lives and never talk to them. We no longer need to call to say hi and catch up because FB has done that for us.  Again, my limited opinion.