BEING TENACIOUS...

Like the little squirrel in this picture, we sometimes have to stick with something to get results. Imagine how many cheek pouch full of nuts and seeds this furry little whirlwind needs to gather for the winter!

Today’s quote was part of the Weight Watcher meeting I led on Tuesday and I really like it. Sometimes, you just have to eat that elephant one bite at a time!

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal:
my strength lies solely in my tenacity.”

-Louis Pasteur

THE EFFORT IT TAKES...

I love this picture. It was taken at King’s Landing last summer when our family escaped to Fredericton for the weekend and visited the historical site there. In the back room of one of the old houses, lay this collection of soaps that had been handmade over an open hearth. What work it took to make the things needed for everyday existence. How easy it is for us to toss a bar of soap into the basket at the store and not even think about how something is made!

Things that matter, take time. It takes 9 months for a child to grow enough to be born. It takes hours and hours, stitches and stitches to make a quilt or complete a cross stitch design. When it becomes all about how fast and how easily, how cheaply and how effortlessly we can obtain something, I think we miss out somehow and cease to really value what we end up with. Fast food is not really satisfying on the same level as a meal that you smell cooking for hours. Cheap clothing often unravels or wears out so easily. It would be a shame if we continue down this road of a “disposable society” too far.

‘All growth depends on activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
-Calvin Coolidge

We should stop being afraid of the effort it will take to accomplish something. Good parenting is hard work. Keeping a marriage vibrant is work. Building a career or making life transitions are work. I am learning to savour the effort as well as the goal... and that is making all the difference!

THE REFLECTIONS OF OUR ACTIONS...

I love walking around the ponds near our house. The light on the water is never the same two days in a row. It also makes me think about how our actions, our lives, our words reflect to the outside world. Sometimes it feels as if the world only looks at surfaces instead of what may lie beneath. Sometimes we meet people who seem to be one thing, but their reflection is another. Their actions and the way they respond to the world do not match what we see.

I stumbled across this quote and it seemed perfect for my musings. I hope that my surface and its reflection are always true to who I am. That is probably the best way to tell the difference between character and reputation.

“Reputation is what men & women think of us;
Character is what God and angels know of us.’

-Paine

ENFORCED REST...

Nick has no choice now but to take this week at a slower pace. With his back still in spasm and his mobility limited, he is having to shuffle around the house or from chair to couch. Sometimes it takes something like a setback to make us look as the pace of life we lead. Is it worth it? Are we happier for all the “stuff” that we fill our houses with that we work so hard to earn?? Would time be worth more to us in the long run and better for our health?

Today was suddenly warm and sunny after a grey start to the day, so I raced about to get a load of laundry to put on the line in the oddly summerish breeze. When Bethany got home from school, she and I spent an hour outside clipping back the elderberry bush that had gone mad this summer and filling a whole lawn and leaf bag with leaves, twigs etc. since tonight is garbage night. I found this quote tonight and it seemed to fit perfectly with my thoughts lately.

‘We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. Se how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.’

-Mother Teresa

As I went out to put the last few bags of garbage at the curb... the triumph of cleaning “stuff” out of the shed, but also the task that “broke” my husband, I looked up at the almost full moon glowing in the sky, one planet dancing beside it and another twinkling on the horizon. It is good to feel small and quiet sometimes.

REMEMBER...

Today is a time to remember many things; freedom, blessings, peace, places in the world that still face strife, choices and those whom we love.

We had planned the day to just be one to spend together... to Remember that we were a family. Our schedules have been SO hectic lately that we wanted just to take some downtime together.

Yet, Nick and I are so task oriented. We just had to do something productive, so we decided to clean out our shed... but Nick must have twinged something in his back because everything seized when he woke up from a nap mid-afternoon.

I found this quote tonight far more appropriate that the one I intended to use. It certainly applies to our lives!

‘Our family is a circle of love & strength.
With every birth and every union the circle grows.
Every Joy shared adds more love.
Every Crisis faced together makes the circle stronger.’

-Anonymous

DREAMING OF WARMTH AND LIGHT...

The nights are so much darker now. It is a cold, crisp dark that takes your breath away and the wind rattles the leaves that are still bravely clinging to the branches of the trees. The night are also colder and my youngest skips about wondering how soon the first snowfall will come.

As much as I love each season, I still find the transition to cold and dark hardest of all. Once the snow comes, it will blanket things until spring. For now, the wind seems to scour the dying grasses and withered plants, skittering across nothing but semi-frozen packed earth. It swirls in eddies around the new doors we put in, seeking cracks and openings where it could steal into the warmth and light of our house.

The power of being a visual person is that I can close my eyes, despite the sound of the wind on our shutters, and feel the warmth of the summer sun on my face. I can look at pictures such as this one and know, deep down, that warmth and light will return eventually. This darkness will not last forever. Tonight’s quote reminds me of why taking time to dream is so important...

‘Some men see things as they are and ask “why?”.
I dream of things that never were and ask “why not?”’

- George Bernard Shaw

FINDING YOUR OWN PATH...

This is partly for Erin, my oldest, who was very much in my thoughts tonight as my other blog will reveal. I found this quote for comfort after she had gone to bed and I was finally able to get back to the computer. I will read it to her in the morning, but it was my candle in the darkness tonight.

May you have the grace never to sell yourself short,
grace to risk something big for something good,
grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth,
too small for anything but love.

-source unknown

THE POWER OF FIRE...

“It Takes The Hottest Fires
To Forge The Purest Blade”

This was a quote I once stumbled across that I had trouble with. We never want to think that fires are necessary to forge ourselves. Couldn’t a nice lukewarm heat be enough? Why go to all the length that a blistering inferno would demand upon us?

Every time I look at a campfire, I am reminded of that most basic element of our lives. Fire has the power to warm us and cook our food... yet it can also go out of control and threaten our very existence. Anyone who has ever fled their home to escape a forest fire can attest to what happens when a basic element like fire gets out of control.

We need to learn not to fear the times of fire in our lives. A fine weapon is forged in the hottest of flames. We too can be tested without being consumed.

Fire can be a light which helps keep the wild animals at bay,,, which helps us have a warm meal and light until dawn. A new fire can be started from the smallest of embers....

May the fires of hope be rekindled in our lives!

HOPE IS A STAR...

Looking at the calendar, I suddenly realized how close the beginning of Advent is. One of my favourite new hymns, thanks to my sister Laurie introducing me to it, has the following verse:

HOPE IS A STAR
THAT SHINES IN THE NIGHT
LEADING US ON
‘TIL THE MORNING IS BRIGHT.

Stars that guide us come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are physical beacons of light to follow, sometimes they are help or kind words just when we need them the most. Sometimes, they are tiny wonders like this starfish in my daughter’s hand. Was it aware of being saved as she slipped it back into a tidal pool after finding it washed up on a rocky shore?

When we hit those dark times, we need to hang on and follow our stars and cling to our hope until the dawn comes again and the world breaks forth into the light of a new day.

THE WEAVER...

When we visited the Historic settlement of Kings Landing this summer, I was captivated by the colours of the hand-dyed wool that the women had recreated using dying techniques from centuries ago. This evening, while tackling the mess that my office has become after 2 weekends of shows, I found this bookmark that I bought while I was a teenager. How well the two go together!

The Weaver

My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me
I cannot choose the colours
He worketh steadily.

Ofttimes he weaveth sorrow
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
and I, the underside.

Not until the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

-Author Unknown

I will think about that with every piece I design. It would look awful if all the colours were bright and sunny with no contrast.... but those silver and gold days/threads are sure to be treasured!!