2020 Family Photos

 I randomly decided today to attempt some photos with my children. I announced that the field across the road had been cut, not been sprayed with manure, and we should attempt photos. My oldest was of course totally into it and started getting ready. The other four children took the usual monumental efforts to prepare (and you can't tell there was any effort at all) and as I did that the manure trucks started rolling in. Haha, big sigh...

Why are family photos so stressful? I guess because they matter? Anyway I did my best. 

Just Pictures

Sometimes pictures of a one year old and beautiful fields just bring a smile when you need it.

Her first pair of Flops as she calls them. We put them on her many times a day. And why not a solo attempt at putting them on while perched precariously in a basket?

   She is really getting into coloring ~ on herself.

The wonder of fall leaves. She was so precious in her discovery.

                                                My view across the road never disappoints.

                                             This coat and boots combo :) She is so sweet.

Breathing Through It All

   Some weeks are harder than others ~ and then some weeks are devastating. I suppose everyone holds their devastation differently in their body. I am realizing as I 'age' that the way my body is managing devastating times is by forcing rest. I just have to rest in bed for a time. I feel numb inside and yet in so much pain. It is such a horrible feeling and I just cannot function.

  The last few weeks I had someone pass away in my life that I really loved. They were so young, so precious, and their leaving just feels so wrong. I don't have all sorts of words around it but I have been trying to grapple with the reality. 

  Loss is so final. There is no going back. There are memories and pictures and stories and hope for Heaven but often that does not feel enough. So you wail alone or with other's who mourn, you feel angry you feel bereft, you feel abandoned you feel exhausted and in the end you just keep putting one foot in front of the other knowing that you must. Life does not stop.

  October marches on and 2020 is nearing its end. The leaves are in their glory and the chill and cold has come with a vengeance and I keep going through all this ~ the day in and day out tension of grief and gladness, bewilderment and hope, anger and peace ~ and keep breathing through it all.

 

  

She Sells Flowers ~ From Her Heart To Yours

  How many of us (as little girls)  have these whimsical wishes?

To be a gardener? To be a cow girl? To be a flower arranger? To do something that felt grand? Maybe it was to work in an orphanage when you grew up? Or to play in a symphony? Maybe to be a doctor or nurse? Or was it to be a singer or artist?

There is something precious in us all I think ~ those of us who have been even remotely nurtured ~ that longs to give something beautiful to the world. To CREATE something beautiful to put out there ~ an extension of ourselves.

This is so noble, so right!

This is what we SHOULD be doing.

And yet

How often are we really living an authentic life? A life where we are not just stifled, going through the motions, forgetting to express ourselves. Forgetting who we really are. Weighed down by anxiety or depression or bills or sickness or expectations...the list is long. 

I'll leave these photos here ~ 

Let these awaken something in you

Something precious and important and beautiful!

Take some time to remember your visions, your hopes, your dreams

Take some small steps towards them again

xo

She Turns Ten

 There is something about turning ten. You are leaving behind something precious and entering into something new and something potentially challenging. 

This sweet heart turned ten this month and how is this possible? How can she be ten? She just is. I have been with her ten years and she has blessed me so much in this time. There are not the right words. 

Thank you for it all ~

Beauty Everywhere

  A post on Instagram by Joy Prouty encouraged her readers/viewers to take the anxious parts of their brain and fill it in a different way by doing something creative. I read that weeks ago and I have been savoring the thought and holding it carefully waiting for a chance to do just that.

I have this dear soul in my life who's art is creating beauty in her space. The other day I brought my camera to her home (not for the first time) and looked at it all in pictures. 

This is what I captured for you ~