Onward & Upward

Is everyone still speaking to me? So sorry to have been MIA for so long. It's been a crazy few weeks. Of course, that's not really fair. I'm sure everyone has had their share of crazy.

There's a book I'm looking forward to reading. My friend just bought it...it's "Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist" by Michael J. Fox. And I don't want to read it just because I was a big Alex P. Keaton fan when I was a kid.
I'm amazed that his story--his book--can be called "Always Looking Up", when he's living with a debilitating, life-ending disease.

Our family's cross seems to always be health problems. Someone in one of our families seems to always be burdened with the worry of health problems. My grandma and my father-in-law both had strokes/spells in this last two weeks.

And I've seen what chronic pain and health problems can do. It can make it just a little harder to smile every morning. Slower to laugh. Sometimes you just feel washed out. Other times completely flattened and defeated. It's hard to see the future clearly. To be buoyed by hope. So I admire Mike for doing the unthinkable, and being positive, and even grateful, even at the stage of his life.

I was also intrigued by the title of this book. I've always considered myself a positive person, a perpetual optimist. But as I get older I'm realizing that that's not completely true. It's not like I can pride myself on making a choice of seeing the positive in every situation. Because I don't always do that. But what I do is cling to the positive like a lifeline. I've learned that I can't function if I'm focused in what's going wrong. I'm motivated the positive, and when I'm buried in the bad times, it's only by holding on to the bits of good around me, that I can pull out of the mire. So I'm interested to read Mike's views on "incurable optimism." Hope it's good...I'm going to steal it from Dawn as soon as she finishes it. :)

Here are a few quotes from Mike:


"If you were to rush into this room right now and announce that you had struck a deal - with God, Allah, Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Bill Gates, whomever - in which the ten years since my diagnosis could be magically taken away, traded in for ten more years as the person I was before - I would, without a moment's hesitation, tell you to take a hike."
— Michael J. Fox, from "Lucky Man"

""Happiness is a decision.""
— Michael J. Fox

""When prescribing one of the drugs I take, my doctor warned me of a common side effect: exaggerated, intensely vivid dreams. To be honest, I've never really noticed the difference. I've always dreamt big.""
— Michael J. Fox

Spring Sunshine

Today I was good to the environment, but hard on my aching bones. I planted eight, yes, eight, trees today. All fruit trees...our own little orchard! This was one of those perfect Spring days--sunny and inviting, but with one of those rare gentle Spring breezes. (So much more pleasant than the gales we see much of the year out here.) I spent most of the day outdoors.

I hauled the trees and dirt around with the lawn mower (it pulls a small trailer). It reminded me so much of my Grandpa. Papa was more like a Dad to me, and we lost him a few years ago to cancer. Almost every day summer day in my childhood Papa would be working in the backyard. I'd hop in the little trailer behind the mower and he would drive me all over the pasture. He would tell me to get my "workies" on (overalls), and I'd go out and "help" him gather wood, or pick watermelons, or collect acorns. I feel like we're creating something here that he would have loved.

As we gear up for a new work week, here are a few quotes as food for thought. I LOVE this Emerson quote...it puts things in perspective.

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a "creative" job, so I'm always on the look out for inspiration. That's what drew me to this silly little Suess quote...

"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"
— Dr. Seuss

Our Irritating & Endearing Friends

I'm watching two dachshunds sleeping sweetly and peacefully on the loveseat. Of course, they barked right through the end of Fringe tonight, they demanded a pillow and blanket (one each), which basically left no room for a person anymore, and fought over prime position. Sigh.

I probably have the orneriest (is that a word?) dachshund ever, and yet I'm ridiculously nuts about her. I named her Nixie, which I found in a German name book, and it meant "water sprite". Cute, I thought. Then I saw an article that explained the history of nixies, which are EVIL water sprites. I cursed my dog.
Of course my mom's dog, Hayley, is no better behaved, and she has a normal (albeit too human) name. Her name is irritating, because my husband's name is Lee, and "Hayley" sounds too much like "Hey, Lee." Oh, the hilarity and confusion that ensues.

A friend of mine also has a dachshund, named Gatsby. This clip is for her today. Her dog doesn't like his new apartment, and has taken to barking. Well, maybe Gatsby can get some training from this dachshund.

But since today's theme is pets, I have a few more pet antics that I wanted to pass along...

catapulting cat: this one starts slow, but trust me, it's worth the wait.

slinky: short but sweet.

chick pals: i wish I had this dog's energy.

letter opener: your mail will never be the same.
http://video.yahoo.com/network/100284668?v=4956499&l=3774740

ninja cat: another slow starter, but pretty great.

You're As Young As You Feel

For some reason today, it struck me how few years I have until I reach 40. It didn't just surprise me--it felt like an out-of-body experience. When did the passing of time become a speeding bullet?

I would like time to be my friend, but sometimes it feels more like a drill sergeant.

Well, if you think getting older means slowing down, just check this out.

The Day After

Well, it's the day after surgery day, and my husband's at home, recovering. We're so happy and grateful to have this part behind him. Now he needs to heal and recover (with quite a bit of physical therapy for his arm thrown in).

This has taken time away from the blog the last few days...but I'll jump back in this week!

Thanks for everyone's support--we appreciate it!

In the meantime, here's a few little bits for you...

For an extreme wedding...click here.

A fun tidbit for Harry Potter fans...click here.

Perchance to Dream

I'm reading a retelling of Persuasion (Jane Austen) right now, written from Captain Wentworth's point of view. There's a lovely quote in it that I want to share. Captain Wentworth had just woken up from a dream about Anne:

"In life one could suspect that a certain thing was true. In dreams, you knew to the core of your being that something was true, even without the slightest bit of support....Out of the blissful nothing, he sensed her presence."

Have you ever woken up from a dream like that? Something that in reality is quite fantastic, but in your dream, seems perfectly logical, and beyond that, feels deeply, profoundly true. More true than we feel things even in real life. I think there's something about those kinds of dreams that let us experience things with our whole heart and soul, without our mind getting in the way. No reason or doubts or fears are allowed to interfere with those simple, true feelings. In those dreams, feeling IS truth. Nothing else is needed. We're in perfect harmony with emotion.

We know moments of joy in real life, but dreams give us a tantalizing glimpse of perfection, a clarity of feeling and purpose, that's really unequaled. It's not that it's better than reality--but it's more pure, more focused--it makes feeling something tangible, that you breathe like oxygen, or moves along your skin like a cool breeze.

Mmmmmm. Here's wishing you all sweet dreams tonight...

Let the Sun Shine In

I'm not at my best today. I need to take my own advice. Today it's like a wall has gone up around my heart, and no happiness can quite penetrate it. It's a wall of worry and stress and hurt and exhaustion. It separates me from my surroundings, closing me off from everyone around me.

Maybe sometimes we almost don't want to let the happy in. We pull the hurt up around us like a blanket, holding on to the pain, as if embracing it can make it part of us, and somehow that will make it more bearable.

I've found the best remedy for nights like this is to curl up with a real cozy blanket and go to sleep. So that's where I'm headed.

But here's something that did made me smile today...it reminded me of my first cheerful house. This is the color we want to paint our new house in, someday...

If happiness has a color, it would be... click here to find out.

Holding Fast

Life is tenuous. Our world can be turned upside down in the blink of an eye. While some days and weeks meander slowly, with little changes, and thrust you rapidly off a cliff. Every day I am surprised (though I don't know why) to hear of some new tragedy around the world, or far too close to home. Who knew we'd live in an age of pirates and tea parties. I wouldn't have believed it, a few years ago. Not that I don't appreciate the frustrations. Job loss has become a creeping, foggy disease that every family prays will pass over their house. And by the way, our houses are worth less, but we're stretched even farther. And somehow ideals like honor and honesty have fallen out of fashion. And beyond all these worries hanging over us, there are the things we long for that we don't have. In my family, we're anxious to start a family...and the adoption wait seems endless. Somehow, these burdens seem even heavier today.

But within this uncertain life, we still have our little pleasures and lovely moments. And because they are fleeting, they're all the more precious. I've said that before, I know. But today I'm holding fast to it, like a lifeline. There's a reason we're born and we die and we suffer pain some days in between. If we didn't know grief, laughter would lose it's power. If we didn't know loneliness, the spark of true connection would lose it's meaning.

This has been a maudlin blog, forgive me. But here's a song that I think sums up my thoughts tonight...and always lifts my spirits. Hopefully it will cheer yours, as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o02nfZAqppA

Tonight, my happy is the simple joy of having family close, and safe. And for tonight, that can be enough.
Though to be honest, a bit of leftover Easter candy doesn't hurt, either.

Movies, Etc.

Just a quick happy tonight (apologies for being silent for a few days). We hosted Easter for both sides of the family...so that took up the weekend! It was equally enjoyable and exhausting. But suddenly it's Monday, and the routine starts again.

Tonight we watched the first hour of Cranford. You may not be familiar with it. It's based on a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. Still not ringing a bell? She was a nineteenth century author, and her books are really quite hilarious. We love period movies, and there are always a shortage of quality pieces. This one looks really promising. I do NOT recommend Anthony Trolloppe's "He Knew He Was Right." We watched that a few weeks ago--four hours of watching a jealous husband go slowly mad. I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't. But I'm definitely enjoying Cranford so far. One funny thing, though...for any of you that love BBC/Austenesque movies like I do...have you noticed the shortage of actors? The same twenty or so people keep showing up in all my favorite period movies. It's become a game for us to pause the movie when a new character comes on and remember what movie we last saw her or him in. There are at least four actors in Cranford that were also in Wives and Daughters, Gaskell's other book (movie). It's funny to see people who might be siblings in one movie suddenly be romantically involved in another. But it's also comforting to curl up and watch the same old friends in another lovely period piece. A nice treat for a gloomy Monday!

Here's a trailer for Cranford...if you liked Pride and Prejudice and Emma, you should enjoy this...
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3082748185/

Sorry, I know this was boring for anyone not into these types of movies. So here's a little Easter laugh for everyone else...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoyeQD9ztAE

Almost Friday Funnies

Today I'll just pass along a few funnies...

Easter warning! If you plan to have an egg hunt, beware of the notorious Easter egg snatcher...he may be in your neighborhood...
http://www.youtube.com/

I love my job. I feel lucky to be able to say that. But I've gotta admit, this place looks pretty fun, too! ;)
http://www.gnn.com/

And finally...watch this trailer for the next 007...
http://www.youtube.com/