Needing Relief?

There will be times in our lives when we feel overwhelmed, exhausted and emotionally beaten. When we are experiencing these things and are wanting to feel some relief, we must remember that we have a choice.

We can focus our attention on something in nature, like the trees, the sky and clouds and feel appreciation for the attention that Universal Source continually has upon us.

We can focus our energy and feel appreciation for the divine support we have, divine guidance, divine love and this will ease our suffering.

Suffering is a result of living disconnectedness. Yes, it is true, we are disconnected from happiness and good feelings sometimes, but we are always connected to our Universal Source.

Focusing on the eternal connection will bring us ease.

Another One of Life's Miracles

For the sake of being respectful of another person's privacy I am changing the name of the person in this story.

You never know when some little innocent act of kindness could be a huge turning point in someones life. I learned over the weekend that a note I gave to Joe in the past provided him with just the just the right amount of support to validate his feelings and encouraged him to make a much needed change in his life.

I never knew how that note affected him. In fact I completely forgot about the note all together, but recently I had an opportunity to chat with Joe and have asked his permission to share the gist of what he shared with me. I have paraphrased a bit and changed some of the details to protect his privacy, but here is what was shared with me:

I'm working hard to learn to love myself and to have a group of others with similar beliefs as myself as a support system. I am serious about wanting change in my life and I've always been able to recognize evidence of a being greater than myself in my life experiences with people and animals. Honestly, your note to me on that day at that time in my decision making process was huge and I still read it every day to remind myself that focusing on the problem makes me a part of the problem. Telling me that my greatest asset was believing everything was going to be okay was so validating for me. The reason I am telling you this is because I trust you. I realize that even though you don't realize it and you're not perfect just like everybody else doesn't take away from the feeling I have that you are an angel among us. You're in this world to shine your light and I believe you do a really good job of it just by being yourself without even realizing the light that everybody gets just from being around you.

Oh my gosh! What an amazing compliment and really Joe deserves to be grateful and praising of himself, because all I did was leave a note. He is the one that took that note and decided to make a change. Someone else may have just read the note, thought it was nice and went on with their lives in the same manner.

Good for you Joe! Give yourself credit for having the courage to make a change for the better in your life. I am grateful for you in my life and for sharing the affect my note had on you. I appreciate the feedback because I believe my purpose in life is to facilitate light, love, happiness and growth and had you not shared this with me, I never would have known the impact that small gesture of kindness had on you. Thank you for trusting me and for granting your permission to share this experience in my blog. I think it is an amazing thing to share in an effort to expand awareness and growth.

Right on Time

I know I've written about the new sweet love of my life, Marbles, our 10 week old golden retriever, but I know I haven't shared all the little things about this precious being and the process of bringing him into our lives that have made it, "oh so very special".

I know that if you are an avid reader you know that our sweet 12 year old golden, Waffles, transitioned back in September. We had a long last 5 months with him. He started having seizures in May and we discovered a tumor on his brain. We decided to treat the tumor with radiation treatments because of the location of the tumor it was deemed inoperable.

Our hope was the treatments would reduce the size of the tumor and the seizures would stop. Once the treatments were complete and he was on seizure control meds, the seizures continued, even with increased dosages of his meds. Our hearts were slowly breaking with each episode.

Towards the end it got to the point where he was having small continuous seizures and the sweet little Waffles energy that he always had was gone. The last 24 - 36 hours of his life were some of the hardest hours of my life. I was and remain ever grateful that Keri and I were in agreement when we decided it was time to set his spirit free.

We knew we did every single thing we could have done. We had no regrets regarding how we raised him, fed him, trained him, decided how to deal with his ailment and in the end how we decided to provide a graceful way out of his suffering.

We grieved and we grieved HARD!!!

Now that I've practically brought myself to tears, let's focus more on how special the process has been bringing Marbles into our lives? The coincidences are far too frequent and obvious not to mention.

We knew Waffles was going to go before we were ready and had discussed how long we would wait to get a new puppy. We agreed that we would wait until we were ready. Waffles transitioned on Sunday Sept. 21st and by Tuesday Sept. 23rd we decided we were ready to have a happy little puppy energy in our lives. We knew it would be a process, so we wanted to put our feelers out and see what would come of our inquiries.

Keri reached out to several Golden Retriever breeders and it turned out that, Judy, the breeder we got Waffles from had two momma dogs that were pregnant. One of the momma's, Chatter, was pregnant with a litter from Paisley, a son of the great, Rolex. Rolex was Waffles' daddy.

OMG!!! If Chatter had more than one boy in her litter we could have a nephew of our sweet and precious Waffles. The reason Chatter needed to have more than one boy was because Paisley belongs to Judy's son and he wanted to have a boy from that litter for breeding purposes.

We would have been just as pleased with a puppy from the other litter. We met both the momma dogs and they were so sweet, but as it turns out Chatter had 2 boys and 7 girls. The important part there is that she had TWO boys. We were in!!!

During that initial conversation Keri had with Judy, Judy shared that Rolex had just transitioned in May, right before his 16th birthday and right when Waffles began having seizures. So, in Sept. when we were talking about getting a new puppy we realized Waffles had returned to his spiritual realm where his father was as well. I have to admit this news provided me with a little comfort, just because I felt like Waffles had his Daddy to provide him some guidance in his new realm.

When we found out Chatter had the puppies, we learned they were born on October 23rd 2014. Why is that significant? Well, two reasons: 1) the puppies would be 8 weeks old the weekend before Christmas and right at the perfect time Garrison was coming into town from Oklahoma for the holidays, enabling him to go with us to get our second puppy from Judy. Garrison was 12 years old when we went to Judy's to pick up Waffles. Now, at 24 he went with us to pick up Marbles, right on time. 2) Over the last year or so, Keri and I have been planning an event with family and friends to celebrate our marriage and our relationship in 2015. The date? October 23rd, 2015. Marbles will be turning one on our event date and yes, he will be there. October 2015, Keri and I will be celebrating our 20 year anniversary and our puppy's birthday.

Are you beginning to believe this puppy was meant for us? Yes, us too. See how remarkable the coincidences are? Wait there's more!!!! Saturday when we took Marbles to his very first vet appointment, a well puppy check, his doctor, Dr. Shannon Williams gave him a new toy. It was a little blue bear and I kid you not one little bit. That blue bear was exactly like the little blue bear Judy gave to Waffles 12 years ago as his take home toy. The little blue bear she rubbed on Waffles' mom and all of his litter mates, so he would have some comfort in his new home. We still have that bear, well now we have two.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="673"] The blue bear on the right is the bear Judy gave to Waffles 12 yrs ago.[/caption]

 

Given that Rolex is the father of Waffles and Paisley and the grandfather of Marbles, and all the details I've shared with you here today, we decided to register Marbles with a very special name. His father is registered as Wood Duck Time Well Wasted "Paisley" his mother is registered as Wood Duck Time to Talk "Chatter" and our puppy, their son, is registered at Wood Duck Right on Time "Marbles".

Dude, I'm Half Ginger

Over the weekend my best friend from age 16 posted this meme on her FB page, which is kinda funny because #1 she is a red head and #2 she has been nominated by all those who know her to be an official member of the grammar police.



I commented that we thought Marbles was going to be a red head and that his little eyelashes are red. I almost added that I call him our sweet little ginger. In fact I did type that part out, but then deleted it because I wasn't 100% sure the term "ginger" might not be offensive to her.

Instead, I decided to send her a text to ask her opinion on the term "ginger". This was her reply: "Well, the negative connotation came from a South Park episode, in which the South Park kids were trying to gather up all the ginger kids because they said gingers had no souls. And there are a lot of ginger jokes that are negative, so that’s where that came from. In my experience, most redheads are proud of it and don’t mind being called ginger because they feel their gingerness is rare and unique. I’m a proud ginger and I don’t know one redhead that minds being called ginger. It's very thoughtful of you to ask."

Here is what I responded: "I am happy to hear more and more people of all kinds of differences are turning differences into points of pride. It seems more and more acceptance is being cultivated and diversity of all sorts is being celebrated. I'm proud of my ginger bestie."

I have to share this part of the thread because it's the best part. She also shared this bit: "What’s funny to me is that kids today think “ginger” is like a race. I remember one time when my son was in high school and was in football summer training. He had a lot of bruises on his arms and one of his teammates asked him why he bruised so easily. Her son replied, “Dude, I’m half ginger!” That still cracks me up."

A Moment Of Gratitude

I want to take a moment to share a bit of gratitude. It is very simple. I love knowing what I know. What I know is that everything is always working out for me. I am a writer and a writer must write. Last week I had the opportunity to write in front of this beautiful view.

I love my life.

Still Learning

I love the little things in life that shine a new light on a situation. I love the opportunity to change my perspective. I love awareness and expansion. All of these things are true and the thing that occurred that brought this thought to my mind is a funny little situation between Garrison and I.

As you know he has been in town visiting for the holidays. We set him up in the guest room that was his room when he lived with us most recently, as an adult. While looking through the stuff in there, he found my red fuzzy Viking hat that I got from the Warrior Dash I ran back in September.

Garrison came out into the hall wearing the Viking hat and announced that he was going to be taking it back to Oklahoma because the mascot of his school is a Viking. He said he was going to wear the hat to games and stuff. I responded, "Oh I can't wait to see that".

He looked at me a little confused and said, "What do you mean? You can see me right now?" I clarified, "I mean I can't wait to see it on Facebook in real life". Garrison said, "This is real life mom, FB is not real". I meant a real life situation.

Of course I realize that FB is not real life and that we are experiencing real life in this moment, but this situation created a new level of awareness for me. On one hand, FB does provide a glimpse into the lives of our friends and loved ones, near and far, however it really only provides a glimpse of what they are willing to share, but really I guess that's always the case.

How well do we really know those closest to us? Only as well as they allow us. Maybe an even better question is, how well do we really know ourselves? As for me, I know myself better than I used to and I am still learning.

My hope is that I will continue to grow and expand my ideas and concepts about life. In this process of life I hope I am evergreen and growing.

Yup! It's a New Year

Happy New Year People. Yes, it is a new year and many think of this as a time to make change and start anew, but just remember it's not just a new year that provides us with this opportunity. Every day of our lives provides the same opportunity.

Any given moment you can make a change. You have the power to slow your momentum when its revving up in a less than desirable manner and create momentum in a positive direction. You have the power to focus on something better.

I'd like to take this opportunity to share with you some very profound wisdom that Keri shared with me yesterday regarding having a new puppy. I am sharing it with you because I think it applies to way more than just having a new puppy.

OK, are you ready? Here it is: Its hard when its hard and its fun when its fun, we just have to enjoy the fun times.