Happy Beautiful Birthday Emi!

My sweet little friends birthday is TODAY! Happy Birthday my little (Sara Evans look-alike) friend, Emily Knudsen! Much Love and many hugs to you! I hope your day shines delightfully on you. Always know you have the most beautiful soul and best giggle, ever!

Have a blessed and just scrumptious weekend!

Good for Monday!

View off of my porch right before dark on Saturday night.

If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for
you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose,
for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down,
but the staying down.

-- Mary Pickford

Also, I got to spend time with this silly soul (Wesley, age 2) this weekend. He had his very first spend the night at my house and he seemed to do quite well and was silly as always.
Oh my goodness he is such cuteness! Children are just good medicine for the soul...okay unless they are cranky and it is time to go to bed!!!!!

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did

not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

--Charlotte Bronte

43...and a bowl full of cherries!

Image via: Cig Harvey

Blessed, Happy and just Tickled Pink 

about this bowl full of cherries called, Life.

So, why do I say that you ask? Well, let me tell you.

I turn 43 today....eeeeeeeeeeek! Someone said to me...You look absolutely amazing for 43 (Insert smile here). Offended at first because they said the infamous "for 43". But then I thought this is a compliment. So, take it and run with it, and be grateful. 43 is just a number. 

One truly is only as old as they think. 

So, I am grateful for.....

• The fact that God wishes and chooses to have any kind of relationship with me blows me away. Lord knows it is only by his grace and kindness.

• Excellent Health - For that alone, amazingly grateful.

• My family with whom I adore each one and am blessed enough to go through hard, or laugh hysterically with. You are my true smiles and my soft place to land!

• Anthony - You always find pretty and good in me and 

teach me that to be silly is good for the soul and just loving me and liking me too. Thank you for being willing to sit with your feet in the sink with Peyton Grace, just because she asked. 

• My friends near and far that I have been blessed with long term in this life. 

Filled with smiles that God found me each one of you.

• My tender Evi, a girl from Indonesia that I get to sponsor. 

You are this amazing gift!

• Smiles and giggles and the ability and now wisdom at 43 to choose happy over anger!  

I just realized one can do this.  Something good from 43!

• The love of sweat and hard work - It is just built in me and who I am.

• Running, heated yoga and working out - I think about this often - That I have a body that is healthy enough to work out, to walk to run. For that I am so blessed and find God's workmanship in the human body amazing.

• The view off my back porch at dusk and the amazing views that clouds and sunshine produce and the twinkle lights at night. 

• My job - To use my mind every day creatively.

• A home to live in!

• Anything creative.

• Starbucks coffee.

• Smiles and laughter that make my cheeks hurt. 

Life beyond all the hard is truly a bowl full of cherries....

If you seek the cherries you will find them...no pits included!

I wish you all a blessed day and so 

much happy that you can't hold it in. 

I wish your life a bowl full of cherries!

Blueberry...Oh My Goodness....Heaven!

Actual Pie made with care by: Lisa Hollmer and family

So, out of the blue (no pun intended on the blueberry) and mind you a long day at work, I get home and am on my computer checking last minute work emails. The doorbell rings and it is my new neighbors Lisa and her daughter Elise with of all things a warm welcome to the neighborhood and a homemade blueberry pie (okay, the girl even picked these blueberries the same day she made the pie...from scratch!). I have got to get some skills of this nature I tell ya. So for now as I learn these things I will have to dust flour on my face and make some brownies from a box to deliver back to you Lisa....smile. I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for the warm smiles, thank you little Elise for just feeling okay to meet me with your mommy. You are a beautiful, gentle light and I am looking forward to your meeting my niece Peyton Grace. Thank you Lisa for coming over and introducing yourself. The pie was Amazing, yum (So much that I could have taken a fork and just eaten the whole pie.) and your company was just delightful! Thank you new friends. I hope in the future to be the same kind of friend back to you.

Also, Friday night my niece came to spend the night. My guy (Anthony) and Peyton Grace had a contest to see who could stay up the latest. This was part a full evening of laughter for me. Peyton Grace saw me washing my feet and thought....Hey, warm water will make Anthony sleepy and not be able to stay up and yeah...I will win the contest. This was after the second round of writing on the mirror with soap. They were there for over an hour writing different things like "Me (Champ)" and other things. It was just a silly time which is usually the case with the two of them. Because they are both soooooooo headstrong they try to see who can out strong will the other, so contests of this nature are constantly going on when the two of these silly people are together!

Be Kinder Than Necessary....and 75% off

Image: via: d. art

"Be kinder than Necessary, for everyone

you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

I wish to state that I went to Ballard Designs 50-75% off  (A homeowners version of  brides getting a dress at Felines 50% sale in NYC!), and I fell flat on my face with words. Can I say...EEEEEEEEEEEEEK! I was not "Kinder than Necessary"..., ouch. I watched on as many southern women became frustrated and rude towards one another over things. I reached my point of frustration when this woman quick on my heels trying to get to a bookcase that might I add, no one was trying to acquire. The faster I walked the faster she got. Just a silly, broken bookcase. I found myself miffed to an extreme by this woman so much that I stepped (Jumped for fear of her running me over, really.) quickly into a cubby area and said of all things..."Please, (sarcastically) you go before me because what you have going on is obviously so much more important than what anyone else has going on in the world.".  A lady in the corner giggled as she had just experienced the same lady and wished for that same come-back. Shut my mouth, I was embarrassed that I did not keep my cool in that place...and flat on my face in words! In the end, I asked a worker to take my pretty light fixtures back to the lighting area and I left empty handed and felt like a bird that had just gotten freed from a lions mouth!  My thought is no "thing" is worth the loss of ones integrity or the cost of joy. I learned something, hopefully and found a way to giggle at the silly in me as I learn to still walk in this life.  I find it funny that as I was there my mom was in Mexico on a mission trip serving.  Still much to learn from her.

  

So, I got home and found this in an email.  This is my version.

Knock, knock. I knocked at heaven's door this morning.
God asked me...'My Child, what can I do for you?'
And I said, 'Father, please protect and

bless, love and help your gentle people hurting in this world.

Please protect us and help us make

wise choices as we walk through life and

help us to be loving and patient toward one another'
Lastly, God help me to forgive quickly and just be kind.
God smiled and Answered...'Requests granted my child'.

I hope that if you are ever on my heels trying to get to a bookcase that I help you get there, and help you even purchase it if I have the funds to do so. I hope I learned to take a deep breath and find giggles in the center of mayhem if nothing else through my Ballard Design sale experience.