"How to be happy when you are miserable.

Plant Japanese poppies

with cornflowers and mignonette,

[very fragrant]

and bed out the petunias among the sweet-peas 

so that they shall scent each other...

Drink very good tea out of a thin Worcester cup 

of a color between apricot and pink...

It was the small things that helped, 

taken one by one and savored...

Make yourself savor them."

-Rumer Godden

Sarah shares that she loves Rumor Godden's memoirs. 

"She is a glorious storyteller, 

but no story is as riveting as real life...

The soul craft of creating and sustaining safe havens, 

set apart from the world,

in which to seek and savor small authentic joys,

is a recurring theme in her work,

whether the haven is behind convent walls 

or in the nursery at the top of the stairs.

Rumer Godden's secret to living an authentic life 

seems to have been dwelling, 

no matter where she actually kept house, 

in the House of Spirit.

'There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that 

everyone is a house with four rooms, 

a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual.

Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, 

but unless we go into every room every day, 

even if only to keep it aired, 

we are not a complete person.'" 

***

Gratitude Journal

***

1) Sleeping with one eye open.

2) Leftovers, means one less meal to cook.

3) Finally making it through that pile of laundry.

4) Still home bound because of no working vehicle, so I'm getting a crap load of stuff done around the house. It's nice.

5) If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. I think my mom taught me that. I'm grateful she did. It hurts when someone says something mean to you, and it hurts to not say anything back, but it hurts a heck of a lot worse when you do say the mean thing. Better to just say nothing and brush off the hurt.

May 1st - Everyday Epiphanies

"Let all thy joys be as the month of May."

-Francis Quarles 

April was pretty amazing...

But what was with last week and that crazy wind!?

And the first week of May, it's going to be 90 something degrees...

That's Fresno for you. 

But other than a little crazy weather now and then, 

May is also pretty amazing.

"With fresh eyes and a loving, appreciative heart, we reconsider our daily rounds. As we learn to savor everyday epiphanies, 

we encounter the Sacred in the ordinary."

"Today a new sun rises for me;

everything lives, 

everything is animated, 

everything seems to speak to me of my passion, 

everything invites me to cherish it."

-Anne De Lenclos 

Start Quote

We should write an elegy for every day 

that has slipped through our lives 

unnoticed and unappreciated.

Better still, we should write a song of thanksgiving 

for all the days that remain.

Sometimes we are aware of the poet who dwells within us 

and registers every precious moment of our lives.

More often, however, we move through our days in a fog or a frenzy - until we're startled into consciousness by an unforeseen threat to something that we hold dear and have been taking for granted. 

I call these luminous moments 

'everyday epiphanies,'

because they jar us into a profound awareness 

of how much we have, 

and how much we have escaped, 

and how much there is to be grateful for.

Through the mystical alchemy of Grace and thanksgiving, 

what might have become an elegy is transformed into exultation:

our own recovery or that of a loved one who has been seriously ill;

the overwhelming relief after a child who has wandered off, 

even for a few minutes, is found, safe and unharmed;

a reconciliation after a painful breach;

the realization of how lucky we are if we are doing work that we love;

the rejoicing that surrounds a long-awaited rite of passage; 

the enormous satisfaction that comes after completing an overwhelming task;

the serenity that awaits us after struggle is abandoned.

End Quote

"You have to count on living every single day 

in a way you believe will make you feel good about your life, 

so that if it were over tomorrow, 

you'd be content."

-Jane Seymour 

I love everyday epiphanies. 

Here are a couple of mine over the last weekend.

Robbie asked for a blessing yesterday, and our home teachers came over and today he is almost good as new. And no one else has caught the bug. He didn't have to take a sick day, and he was able with his dad to work on my car.

My car is broken, but it broke at a most convenient time, instead of a week or so ago when I was an hour away from home. It broke, but I was still able to get it home without killing it. Something about the spark plugs and coils needing to be replaced, and the engine choking...Instead of paying $95 just to have someone look at it, Robbie and his dad took it to get the code read and are in the process of fixing it. We might still have to take it in, but I'm extremely lucky to have such handy men in my life.

Drowning can happen in a second. Did I tell you about the first day of swim lessons? Robbie was there with me and our three littles, all of them with their feet on the steps of the kiddie pool, and Riley gets up and goes around me and gets in on the other side of me. She's on the step, so I figure she's fine. Well, she goes past the step and face first into the water...Robbie pointed it out, I didn't see it. It took me a few seconds to compose myself and get to her, pulled her butt back to the step and helped her up. With all the adults around, and me right beside her, she could have drowned. It would have only taken a second. Today I saw a mother of triplets and then a 15 month younger brother on their first day of lessons. The same thing that happened to Riley happened to one of her triplets. But instead of in the kiddie pool, he stepped off into the deeper part of the pool. She asked someone to grab him, but none of the teachers saw it in time. She got in, tennis shoes and all, phone in one hand (she had been trying to take a picture) and with the other trying to grab him. He was all right, but it was still scary for all of us. That's why I'm spending $750 for 10 individual lessons for each child...so they'll be a little safer in water. 

Silence. But not real silence. It was nap time, and Jacob was eating a sandwich and I was laying on the couch, listening to the washing machine upstairs, the wind chimes and the windmill, and Jacob humming a song. It was so beautiful. 

I was super productive today. 

Enormous satisfaction indeed.

What was one of your everyday epiphanies today?

***

Gratitude Journal

***

1) I'm so grateful for flowers, and for that flower arranging class.

2) Nap time is amazing. I spent most of it with this guy. 

3) Also, my lips matched my pants...I love it.

4) I was wearing Shelby today. Her pants, her necklace...I saw someone today who walked like she did. I miss her.

5) Being freaking productive, like what!?!

April 30th - The Times I Felt Most Beautiful

"I don't believe makeup and the right hairstyle alone 

can make a woman beautiful.

The most radiant woman in the room 

is the one full of life and experience."

-Sharon Stone 

I find it time and time again 

that Sarah has read my thoughts, 

and lived my life. 

I wonder if it's the same with you.

Here it is again in full, 

with a little of me too. 

Start Quote

The times I felt most beautiful 

were on my wedding day, 

the day I gave birth to our daughter, 

and the first time I taught Simple Abundance in a workshop setting. 

But on the day I got married I couldn't get my hair to look right.

[For me, I had acne all over my face, my eyebrows had been picked to near non existence and I had wanted a flower in my hair and it just didn't work right...I should have just taken it out, but gosh darn it I wanted that stupid flower]

While my future husband stood waiting uncomfortably in a room full of curious and bemused guests, I fussed with my hair so much that I was twenty minutes late for my own wedding.

[I wasn't late though. I think we woke up at 4am, and were at our friend's house at 5, to do myself, my mom, and three bridesmaids]

Since we were being married in the home of friends and I was upstairs in a second-floor bedroom, he had every reason to wonder why I couldn't get to the ceremony on time.

Finally, I just put my veiled hat on and went downstair 

with a smile to start my new life.

When friends see my wedding picture today they never comment on my hair; instead they mention the jubilant happiness showing on my face. 

The next time I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world was the day our daughter was born. In these pictures I look like a beached beluga  while sitting up in a hospital bed, but I'm still beaming. The beams are what I notice now. 

[I had gained a pound a day the last week or so of Jacob's pregnancy. It was all water weight. Beached whale I can definitely understand, that is the one and only time I've ever had a double chin. But I did feel beautiful.]

[The twins was an emergency c-section, it was the second time I went into labor and there was no stopping this one. Instead of a beached whale I looked like a zombie, too skinny and pale because they sucked everything out of me. 

But I still felt beautiful.]

After I taught my first Simple Abundance workshop and came back to my hotel room, I accidentally caught a glimpse of a 

beautiful woman 

and I was genuinely astonished. 

"Who are you?" I asked the face in the mirror 

and my authentic self smiled back at me. 

The workshop had been so fulfilling, exciting, and inspiring, and I had experienced such rapport with the women who attended, that 

I was caught up in the exhilarating flow of life and it showed.

Here's the secret I stumbled upon when trying to solve the beauty puzzle. 

The situations in my life in which I felt beautiful were all different, 

but love was the common denominator that transformed me, 

not the outer trappings: 

love for my husband, love for our child, love for my work. 

This is perhaps the most important beauty lesson any of us can ever learn. 

Love has the power to transcend our physical limitations.

'The more I wonder,' Alice Walker confesses, 'the more I love.' 

Let us continuously search for the wonder of it all. 

If we do, we can't help but notice the love bubbling up from deep within. 

When wonder and love become as indispensable to you 

as foundation and blush, 

you will become the most radiant woman in the world.

End Quote

How about you, when have you felt the most beautiful?

***

Gratitude Journal

***

1) Robbie is on the mend...hopefully. Stomach bugs suck.

2) No one else has got it.

3) I finished arranging some music that I've been putting off. Check.

4) Laying out on the grass, in the evening sun, holding the dog.

5) The quiet of night.