Day Sixty-Five -- Be happy...

Copyright 2010.  Flowers in my backyard.

*Think of all the beauty

still left around you,

and be happy.*

-- Diary of Anne Frank --

Day Sixty-Four -- Happy Mother's Day...

Copyright 2008.  Photo taken by my father at my graduation from EKU.

*But there's a story behind everything.  How a picture got on a wall.  How a scar got on your face.  Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking.  But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.*

-- Mitch Album --

Day Sixty-Three -- God's Grace is everywhere...

Copyright 2010.  Storm's brewin'.

*Finding God's grace wasn't like locating missing keys or the forgotten name of a 1940's pinup girl - it was more of a feeling:  the sun breaking through an overcast morning, the softest bed sinking under your weight.  And of course, you couldn't find God's grace unless you admitted you were lost.*

-- Jodi Picoult --

Day Sixty-Two -- The Early Bird...

Copyright 2010.  Finch in my backyard

*A couple hundred years ago Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success;  'Never leave that till tomorrow,' he said, 'which you can do today.'  This is the man who discovered electricity - you'd think more of us would listen to what he had to say.  I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess I'd say it has a lot to do with fear.  Fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of rejection.  Sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong?  What if you're making a mistake you can't undo?

'The early bird catches the worm.'  'A stitch in time saves nine.'  He who hesitates is lost.'

We can't pretend we haven't been told.  We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time.  Heard the damn poets urging us to 'seize the day.'  Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves.  We have to make our own mistakes.  We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore.  Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant;  That knowning is better than wondering.  That waking is better than sleeping.  And that even the biggest failure... even the worst, most intractable mistake... beats the hell out of never trying.*

-- Grey's Anatomy --

Day Sixty-One -- More sunshine and blue skies...

Copyright 2010.  Blue skies after the storm... 

*My chest feels full of glitter and helium, the way it used to when I was little and riding on my father's shoulders at twilight, when I knew that if I held up my hands and spread my fingers like a net, I could catch the coming stars.*

-- Jodi Picoult --

Day Sixty -- Raining Buckets... or at least enough to fill 'em!

Copyright 2010.  The bucket in our neighbor's yard... full of over 36 hours of straight RAIN!

*The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain.  This is the kind the anonymous, medieval poet makes me remember.  The rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters, or read a good book by the fire... take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked windows with complacency.*

-- Susan Allen Toth --

Day Fifty-Nine -- Feeling a little squirrely.

Copyright 2010.  One of the fine furry friends in my backyard :O)

*If we had a keen vision

of all that is ordinary in human life,

it would be like hearing the grass grow,

or the squirrel's heart beat...

And we should die of that roar,

which is the other side of silence.*

-- George Eliot --