"Life's little instructions"

I discovered a great list, called "Life's little instructions".
A 95 year old, successful man named William Snell wrote it for a young friend on 1993, the year I was born. And I loved it!
I think old people are mighty interesting. I have a feeling that they all, even if they hide it, know how to truly live life. (Gotta go visit my grandma!) 'Cause they've lived their life, they've gone through it, they've had to weather its heavy storms, they've fallen and gotten back up again, or they may know just what not to do. I could be wrong, each person's a whole world.
But to me, when a person lives well, its a privilege to take sips of the richness of the vintage wine their life created, and see what we'd like to make of ours...I would've loved to meet this man.
Each of the next points could get me talking for hours, but I'll leave it to your imagination.

Cheers to this rich glass of wine!

Sing in the shower.
Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.
Watch a sunrise at least once a year.
Never refuse homemade brownies. -huuge smile-
Strive for excellence, not perfection.
Plant a tree on your birthday.
Learn three clean jokes.
Returned borrowed vehicles with the gas tank full.
Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.
Leave everything a little better than you found it.
Keep it simple.
Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures.
Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
Be forgiving on yourself and others.
Say "thank you" a lot.
Say "please" a lot.
Avoid negative people.
Wear polished shoes.
Remember other people's birthdays.
Commit yourself to constant improvement.
Have a firm handshake.
Send lots of valentines cards, sign them.
Look people in the eye.
Be the first to say "hello".
Return all things you borrow.
Make new friends but cherish the old ones.
Keep secrets.
Plant flowers every spring.
Have a dog.
Always accept an outstretched hand.
Stop blaming others.
Take responsibility for every area of your life.
Wave at kids in school buses.
Be there when people need you.
Don't expect life to be fair.
Never underestimate the power of love.
Drink champagne for no reason at all.
Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation.
Don't be afraid to say, "I made a mistake".
Don't be afraid to say, "I don't know".
Compliment even small improvements.
Keep your promises no matter what.
Marry only for love.
Rekindle old friendships.
Count your blessings.
Call your mother.
And your father too, if they happen to be alive.

The best monday

When one lives happy days, even when nothing outstanding takes place, but instead it's a string of many lovely, simple and worthwhile little things, one feels alive! -and doesn't want to forget what it's like. Those days make you realize how beautiful things are an every day happening. Sure the world is going in a spiral downwards...but someone told me you don't have to go with it. And I don't want to.
It's not about creating a blissful illusion or a reality that doesn't exist, it's just recognizing like Agatha Cristhie said, that being alive is a grand thing!
And in honor of this one Monday I've lived...I shall make an effort to love all Mondays from now on.
I was remembering recently a quote that read: "You wanna be happy? -expectant grin- then, be." -Oh...-
About this very day all I can say that I haven't already is:

Life, real love, truth, beauty and simplicity -these things can make me cry tears of joy almost any day.
Thanks for them God, they're the part of Heaven that's on Earth -smiles-

Threading a needle

From Jesus with love

When was the last time you tried threading a needle? You probably licked the end of the thread and held the needle up close, squinting, straining your eyes as you carefully and repeatedly tried to maneuver the thread through. Sometimes it threads easier than at other times, but almost always there are those moments of difficulty and frustration, right up until you finally get it through. Now why would you bother threading that needle in the first place? Because there’s a purpose and a plan. You need to create something or mend something.
Remember this the next time you feel like your trials are threading you through the eye of a needle and you’re experiencing pressure, frustration, and anguish. There is a plan and a purpose—My plan—and that is to create something glorious with your life: a tapestry that is going to wow the world with its deep colors, intricate detail, and beauty, the kind that can only be created through the trying of one’s faith. It’s those difficult and hard-earned lessons that make the tapestry of your life stand miles apart from all the rest, because so few are willing to endure and persevere through the trial in order to create that life of beauty and substance.

Something to not forget in the hubbub of every day:

Mom

Living with my mom is much like living with my best friend.
She understands me. She knows so much about me, she loves me anyway, she doesn't give up on me. I don't think she ever ceases to believe that I can do better...she thinks I'm doing great exactly when I feel I'm not, so there she is, believing in me.
I hardly have to ask her to listen to me, because she listens at the first signs of me wanting to talk. She listens, be it about my wild ideas, dreams, or dramatic realizations of how I enjoy showers so much.
She asks for my opinion, it has considerable weight to her.
She gets me out of trouble at times.
If I could put a teacher to it, she's the one who taught me how to laugh. So if I sometimes laugh like her don't blame me :P Oh and her laugh is sonorous..
She confides in me.
I can hug her at any moment I have her around knowing that she'll appreciate it.
We argue.
And then the truly sad part would be if I don't let her know the worlds she means to me.
I'm so glad I still have her around me, to tell her how much I love her, what an amazing person she is and how greatly she marks my life. It's gotta be every-day, clear ways or else she might not believe it...or forget it.
She prays for me.
She tells me when I'm wrong.
She sings to me her song.

The bravest

We've been laughing so hard

Laughing with you can't be compared with anything else.

"Dying of laughter. Better said, they were alive with laughter, because the more they laughed, the more alive they were." -Fernando Savater, The great labyrinth

And then I sing!
I'm so freaking thankful to have you...
thanks for being in my life,
for being such a big part of it.
You don't just take a part in my joys and laughter,
you're there for the rain as well.
You're an at all times friend.
And when I'm sad you create...
laughing opportunities!
Hahah! I love you -bright smile-

But I AM happy

Something that needed reposting:
Wait, yes I did steal this. I stole it because it's the feeling I've been trying to get a hold of, I've had it and I want to retain it. Sometimes all I want is to have my eyes open enough to see... that my life is beautiful..
Because life is full of beautiful things, it is..even tho the sky isn't always shades of pink. She explains it so perfectly, refers to her own life, reflects and encompasses it. She wrote:

"There are stages in life that seem to go on forever--times when we're not at the top of our game, we're not succeeding like we want to, we're not happy.
And I thought hey, this is one of those stages...I'm depressed because i left everything i love in Mexico and also cause i miss my mommy and my daddy, and maybe because i don't feel like i can be a good teacher, I'm not working out like i used to, and really after all, this is just a thing I'm going through, give it another couple months and I'll be over this stage...
but you know what? This is not a 'stage', this is my life that I'm wasting being miserable about something I should have given up when there was still time to make a new life, something that stopped being a long time ago.Of course you don't wake up one day and decide to 'be over' love or 'not miss people'...of course not. It doesn't work that way.
But I am happy.
I love Africa, I love teaching, I love my housemates, I love the work, and I love my life right now!
I keep thinking I'm going through a rough stage and that validates being miserable about pathetic things, but it most certainly does not. All I have to do is wake up every morning and know in my heart that yes, I AM happy.
And at the end of the day, the Lord never changed at all...he's still the guy that held my hand through every pain, every loss, every sickening feeling of worthlessness, every heartbreak, every storm. He didn't give up on my life, so why should I? He still thinks I'm beautiful and worthy of his love. There's nothing in the world I can do to make him not love me, and at the end of life the only thing that'll matter is what I did for Him. When you put things in that kind of perspective, little details like the place you live in and the people you work with, the fact that you do or don't have things you want seem like trivialities. Every single day I am alive is a gift.
Even though life isn't perfect, it's absolutely beautiful."

What I love about uncertainty

I'm uncertain, but I've never been this sure.
Sure that I'm loved, sure that He's with me on it.
Sure that I have no idea of what comes next.
Sure that things change and are never the same...
Sure that I don't have forever to be with the people I love, but there's never a goodbye that's true, cause I'll see you again.
Sure that with each step on thin air, He's taking me somewhere -where he wants me to go- and that is worth the uncertainty to me.
If at times I break down and forget, tell me to stop looking down and to look ahead. Isn't that what birds do?
I'm not a bird, but I have Him. And isn't that a million times better than having your own wings?
I'd die if I didn't have you all the time Jesus. Dead, yes. Thanks for keeping me alive, keeping me awake, thanks for giving me sight, thanks for holding my hand, thanks for surrounding me with your arms at night, thanks for making me laugh, thanks for kissing me sweet, holding my face in your hands and telling me as many times as I need to hear that all is okay.
I don't think I've ever been so in love with you..

Growing old

You granddad tells you all the time: "Jimmy.... don't get old."

I hope we never grow old, no matter how many wrinkles and funny old ppl quirks we have in the end -grins big-
If possible I'd like to get old with you and have you by my side all those years if you can stand having me with you throughout half of our lifetimes or more...
and then more.

What I Know About Being Beautiful

My mom read this story to us kids a morning ago while we were having breakfast.

By Enid C. Anfinson

"Pretty is as pretty does," Mother would invariably say when trying to assuage my wounded ego after some friend (and there were many) had exclaimed, "What a beau­tiful child!"—always staring straight past me to gaze at my sister Ida.
Ida's dark hair hung shoulder length in silky curls while my kinky locks popped back from Mother's comb in hundreds of tight corkscrew curls like the coat of a poodle. I knew I would never be pretty, and I resented it.
The summer that I was 11 years old, Lilla Haley returned to our town. For years I had been hearing the praises of this wonderful woman. Mother's friends never ended a coffee get-together without lamenting our community's great loss when Lilla moved away. Now after all these years, she was returning.
"Who is this lady?" I asked mother.
"Lilla," mother explained, "is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She was a teacher and a nurse and always the Good Samaritan. She has helped find a good home for many a homeless child. She has helped everyone she knows."
I began to paint mental pictures of Lilla. She would be stately, regal, wide-eyed with long dark lashes, a breathtaking figure, and a fine complexion.
It was nine o'clock one morning, two days before anyone in town expected her, that Lilla breezed into our house. Mother was baking cookies. I was on my knees cleaning the cupboard under the sink. Ida was straightening her room.
I stared at the long-awaited Lilla, and my eyes popped. She was short, with a little stoop to her shoulders. Her sandy brown hair was streaked with white. But what was shocking was her mouth. With protruding jaw and uneven teeth, her mouth was badly misshapen.
After the glad cries of reunion between her and Mother, Lilla noticed Ida and me standing by the door, gaping. "Oh," she said, "I almost forgot you had two lovely daughters." Then the miracle happened. Instead of gushing about Ida's beauty, she looked right past her at me.
"That hair!" she said. "Let me feel it." I walked slowly to her side. "Beautiful," she exclaimed, fingering the corkscrew curls. "You'll never have to bother with curling irons as most of us do."
From that day until her demise at the age of 80, Lilla was a very special friend of mine, as she was to all who knew her.
One day I asked her the question that was on my mind: "Lilla," I said, "why are you so nice to everyone?"
She smiled at me. "Enid, I would have been the most miserable and mean person in the world had it not been for my mother. You know I am no beauty and I was very self-conscious about it. One day I blurted out to my mother, ‘Why do I have to have such an ugly mouth?'
"Mother gathered me in her arms. ‘Re­member always,' she said, ‘it is not the shape of a person's mouth that makes her beautiful. It is what comes out of the mouth that makes her beautiful or ugly. I'll promise you if you let only kind words come through your mouth, you'll be the most beautiful person in the world.
"‘But you will need help, and God is always near to help you. Just remember to ask Him.' I have tried all my life to do just that."
It was then I understood my mother's words—pretty is as pretty does.

"Pretty is as pretty does" -that phrase has more meaning to me in spanish, my mother language, "Eres tan bonita como te sientas". The direct translation would be: "You are as pretty as you feel you are".

...believe it.
As much as you think there are so many people much more beautiful than you are, that doesn't take away the fact that you are YOU and you are B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L.
It's so sad to see people whom I truly know to be of the most beautiful people I've met believe they are not, that there is something really wrong with them. In fact they think there's nothing lovely about them, that they're ugly and with plenty of imperfections and of all sorts. I'm not talking about the ones who voice these things cause they want someone to tell them otherwise. I'm talking about the beautiful people in my life who don't think they're beautiful, when every smile, every lock of their wild hair, every eyelash, curve and line say they are.
I don't know what you'd say, but I'd love it if you could join me on a campaign...to tell those beautiful people how they are pretty and lovely in the ways you think they are. Just tell them, you never know how much you could alter their life and change the course it takes... feeling beautiful is a human need I'd say, it's part of being loved and cherished and looked upon as special, incomparable. We all need that, we all want it, we all can give it.

Throw your hands up in the air!

I just fell in love with the above quote..

Nina's birthday

We celebrated my sweet sister's birthday on last week's Thursday, she looked her adorable self!
More than ready to jump into her teens I'd say, but she's someone I would not be the same without.
I love you Nina

Look at the happy, delightful confusion!

We had fun
...please don't die of a heart attack by looking closely into this -grins-

There's nothing like the beauty of having a family, and that family expanding to include new friends and bring dear ones even closer!

There's nothing like the gift of having you!

By faith not sight

This poem moves me, encourages me. It makes me think of "The book of Eli" movie - cause he walked solely by faith-...and then the countless of others who went on even though the winds blew against them.

Sometimes I'm sad, I know not why
My heart is sore distressed;
It seems the burdens of this World
Have settled on my heart.

And yet I know ... I know that God
Who doeth all things right
Will lead me thus to understand
To walk by FAITH ... not SIGHT.

And though I may not see the way
He's planned for me to go...
The way seems dark to me just now.
But oh, I'm sure He knows!

Today He guides my feeble step
Tomorrow's in His right ...
He has asked me to never fear ...
But walk by FAITH ... not SIGHT.

Some day the mists will roll away.
The sun will shine again.
I'll see the beauty in the flowers.
I'll hear the bird's refrain.

And then I'll know my Father's hand
Has led the way to light
Because I placed my hand in His
And walked by FAITH ... not SIGHT.
--Ruth A. Morgan

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery