Happy 101

Linda at Wander To The Wayside passed along a Happy 101 Sweet Friends award this weekend. Thank you Linda! It says "Add kind words; Mix in sweet thoughts; Enjoy good times". The rules are that I tell you about ten things that make me happy, then pass it along to fellow bloggers. It's a great way to start out the week, especially discovering there was so much that pushed my happy buttons.

Happy Buttons:1) My children laughing and my grandson's smile. And my downstairs neighbor's baby's chortles. Okay, pretty much children laughing make me giggle. Unless they're creepy. Like Chucky. But he's not real. Right?

2) Creating ~ writing, photography, crafts, a new life.

3) Golden sunshine against a blue sky with white clouds skittering by.

4) Flowers ~ gardens, pictures, window boxes, but especially in the house. We used to have a gardenia bush when I was growing up in Florida. And I miss the roses I grew in Arizona, big as my outstretched hand (thank you, Miracle-Gro).

5) Birdsong ~ I don't even need to be hiking. Birds at the deck feeders, outside an open window, just please not pooping on my car.

6) Any good book I can't put down. A recent favorite contributing to my grogginess is Linda Lou's 'Bastard Husband--A Love Story'. It's a funny and heart-warming memoir of an amazing woman/comedian/writer/healer (that's my assessment).

7) Sugar in all its nefarious forms, especially if there is frosting involved. And coconut.

8) Checks in the mail and packages from Amazon.com (more books!).

9) Decorating: our home, a cake, my kids, the farm(ville)--sigh.

10) Comments on the blog!

And here are just a few of the fun blog friends (blognutians, according to blognut at More Mindless Rambling) I like to hang out with. By no means is this list complete as ALL the folks on my blog list know how to rock it--whether you are looking to connect with beauty, insight, humor or heart:

Anna at Nature Trail

Deb at Catbird Scout

Linda at Linda Lou, live from Las Vegas

Julie at Midlife Jobhunter

Kim at Yellow Trash Diaries

Jelisa at The Typing Makes Me Sound Busy

Michel at Facts are Strictly Optional

Debbie at Suburb Sanity

Julie at Prairie Thistle

Blognut at More Mindless Rambling

Hilary at The Smitten Image

So I'm grateful for the nudge to think up happy buttons and savor my blog list. It made for the best start to a good week. I invite you to put on a cup of tea/coffee/rum-n-coke and cozy up with them when you get a moment to get to know some really good people. After all, visiting your sites is where I've found all my blog favorites!

Gratitude

On the eve of Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and I can't get over how much I have to be grateful for. It's a quiet time, with three of my four children on an impromptu trip to Vegas with their father, parents and sister in Florida, and an only grandchild with his adoptive parents. I guess it's the perfect time for reflection.

The Utah weather is sunny and crisp, without any dreaded snowstorms (for now, anyway). Blessed with a warm shelter, a running car, food in the pantry, good health, relative youth (ha, take that all you under 47-year-olds), family, friends, and a blog where I have met many astonishingly wonderful people.

Thank you to all of you dear readers and writers, for your insightful blogs, and friendships and connections. May this time of thanksgiving bring you heart-opening experiences filled with love and warmth.

Oh, and a good laugh or two to spice things up. Especially with the family get-togethers...

Finding The Quiet

Credit: Photo courtesy of Aaron Penn, photographer
There are many ways to experience one's connectedness with God. The search takes you outside and eventually leads you inside. One of my most memorable church experiences of that connection was while serving as a young women's counselor while in the LDS faith as one of several stepping stones on my path to finding God.

We were at a summer camp in the pine mountains of Arizona. We held a Sunday service in a clearing in the woods reserved for spiritual gatherings. Sitting on bleachers listening to the speaker, the sun sent illuminating rays through the trees. The slight rustling of the leaves in the breeze, birds singing their own celebration of life, and an abiding peacefulness settled in my being. I felt an aliveness and deep oneness with God. Even now there is an inner cleansing, an inner exhale, whenever I re-live that moment.

It reminds me of an earlier spiritual experience while living in Germany, spending Christmas with extended family in a small town called Selbitz. On Christmas Eve we would walk to a church in the town for a sort of midnight mass. My mother was raised Lutheran, my father Methodist, and my Grandmother was a reformed Catholic living as a Jehovah's Witness. There was something about being there, with other people wanting to experience something extraordinary, and I felt a shared connectedness. I remember how it felt to watch the procession celebrating Christ's entrance into our world, and how warm and full of light the church was. Walking home afterwards, snow falling under a cold, dark sky sparkling with light reflecting off snowflakes and lamp posts, the quiet conversations around us enveloped me in a blanket of peace that resonated on a deep, deep level.

From those earlier experiences I realize why I often find myself in the mountains today, surrounded by quivering aspen leaves, under bright blue skies and the sounds of the forest. It is there where I finally hear myself, where I feel loved and accepted, and close to something greater than my insecure self; something strong and loving and kind. It is where I go to connect with my idea of God, a benevolence that strengthens.

There is a Benedictine monk, David Steindl Rast, who shares his love for God and life, and us, through a website called www.gratefulness.org. Brother David is a vibrant living example of humble humor. He makes me want to go inside, find the best of me, and offer it to the world. He inspires me to ask, "What do I have left to give?"

Here is his gentle prayer on gratitude:


And leaves me with a sense of...