Fueled By Love

It's so easy to be motivated by things like anger, frustration, jealousy, etc. Sometimes we have to make a real conscious effort to increase our positive thoughts enough to be moved into action by them. What inspires us so much that we must DO something? 

Luckily, I have Zachary around and he wanted to make cookies - for the sheer joy of it. I think he wanted to be like Cookie Monster actually, but it was a joyful ride.

I wanted to plant some flowers.

Here's wishing us all a week of deliberate action, inspired by something good, fueled by Love.

Hope you all had a Blessed holiday weekend. I remembered this Memorial Day poem from 2014. It takes on a whole new layer of meaning this year...

"In Memoriam"

With teary eye I thank you, Boy

For giving me your life,

And who am I to take you from

Your mother, son and wife?

With heavy heart I thank you, Miss

Your courage hired for pittance.

If honor earned be heaven's price,

Be sure of your admittance!

To all we've lost, but Angels gained,

Who fly now free from chains,

Unburdened from this world of war,

Your light be not contained.

Our tribute then, could never be

The glory you deserve,

Our closest humble offering, 

In liberty preserved.

- Tanya Diona

Originally published in blog posted May 26, 2014

Love,

T

Gratitude and Hindsight

Cleaning off some bookshelves, I happened across a receipt. At first, it was hard to make sense out of what I was seeing. Why would I be in a hotel for several days, around the corner from my house? It was from Feb 16th.

Funny. I remember being beside myself at the time - at how crazy it was that both the furnace and hot water heater failed at the same time, filling the house with carbon monoxide; at how the garage doors stopped working after the fire people came; and at how I had a gig to get to that evening. The baby sitter had to wait at the neighbor's house because I had to take the dogs to the kennel after picking up Zachary from school. She had to come with me to the hotel where the show was and watch him there while I performed, then Uber home.

That seemed like the craziest sequence of events ever.

Little did I know.

How fortunate it was to have had both of those household repairs done then. How amazing is it that everything was falling into place ahead of time - a solid month ahead of all this.

If "today me" could go back in time and tell "then me" to be thankful for all those crazy happenings because they were such Blessings...

Gratitude. Oh for the strength of Faith to understand that all things happen for reasons unknown at the time, but always for the good.

Blessed week...

Love,
T

P.S.
On a totally unrelated subject, can anyone explain to me why my watermelon has a mustache??? Is this normal? #randomweirdthings #whatisnormal

It led me to this song:

xo

Where to Start

My morning run is often the only time I have to myself, to let my thoughts flow. I had just been thinking about how, despite all of the most recent changes in the world, we have the ability to continue being our unique selves when I noticed the pavement looking back up at me.

I stopped to take a picture. It's not often I jog by what looks like a giant pastel eyeball.

Returning to my thoughts, it occurred to me that while we may need to get creative about how we are able to express our individual talents and abilities, it's been positively heartwarming to see people doing what they do and being who they are. Whether it's being helpful by delivering food to those in need, making people laugh, mobilizing teams to raise money, organizing community services, doing yoga, dancing, teaching, cooking, nursing, writing, etc., people all over the world are finding ways to help each other (and the world itself) with a sense of purpose as never before.

We all go at our own pace. We might each, in our own time, stop and evaluate our path deciding how best to proceed. As we are forced to adapt we might temporarily be in what I call a blind spot - that place we find ourselves when we can't yet see our own future. Faith is necessary. Hope is necessary. Even when these are in short supply, we can keep going. Even when we can not see what is ahead, we can continue our journey with deliberate intention. We might take a new direction. When we don't know where to start, we can just start somewhere - anywhere.

As I put my phone away to continue my run, there was another sign...

I love when the pavement speaks! Who knows where our journey will lead? I ran along the chalk outline until the numbers faded away and finally disappeared completely, but by then I was running again so I just kept going.

Have a beautiful week.

Love,
T

Blue Skies

 

Sometimes it's really just that simple.

It's amazing how many things we may have taken for granted. Just carelessly running out for groceries was such a Blessing. Wouldn't it be great if we developed a profound sense of gratitude for the incredible Blessings we still enjoy? The sky is so blue and beautiful. 

 

xo

Love,

T