Category: Sow Some Seeds

They Are Mailed

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SC Lourie designed Christmas cards this year. I saw them online after Thanksgiving and fell in love. I was so excited about the cards I overlooked the shipping method and she sent them regular mail.

They arrived last weekend from the UK.

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SC Lourie Christmas cards.

I have fond memories of Christmas cards as a child. Mama would tape them around doorways.

They have become a lost art so I’m grateful for the creative souls who are bringing them back to life.

I realized this year I missed them. You give what you wish to receive. The last one was mailed today.

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Years ago, my then husband and I had cards printed and engraved with our family’s names and mailed by a mail house right after Thanksgiving.

I don’t know if I’m bending the rules to the point of nonexistence, or if they just broke when my marriage did. It didn’t bother me one bit to mail these cards the week before Christmas.

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For my daughter the day she left for England. 

They are full of love and they are mailed.

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Sow Some Seeds (Part 7)

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Here are the last of our seeds.

My hope is they are planted in your heart, and you will reap a harvest of goodness now, and in the coming year.

Here are today’s seeds:

I will pause whenever I am feeling sorry for myself today, and remember that this is the only day I have and must play it to the fullest. What my part may signify in the great whole, I may not recognize, but I am here to play it and now is the time.

I will remember that those who have fewest regrets are those who take each moment as it comes for all that it’s worth.

Live in the now. Play it to the fullest! Have no regrets.

This is my day!

These are my seeds.

Thank you, God, for this precious garden of time.

Wishing you a beautiful Christmas, and a New Year filled with God’s very best!

Parts of this Blog are taken from The Seeds of Success, by Og Mandino.

Sow Some Seeds (Part 6)

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It was a choice. Spend his last $30 on a handgun in the pawnshop window, or walk into a library to get warm? Og walked away from the pawnshop, and entered a library in Concord, New Hampshire, where he found W. Clement Stone’s classic, ‘Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude’, a book that changed Og for the better.

His Mother held his dream. She told him throughout his childhood, “You will become a famous writer.” It took years of rough travel down his path before writing, “The Greatest Salesman in the World.” Og struggled being a salesman, but believed in success, and shared his story to inspire others. He is proof of what you receive is what you believe, and speak.

Here are today’s seeds:

I will keep a smile on my face and in my heart even when it hurts today. I know that the world is a looking-glass and gives back to me the reflection of my own soul. Now I understand the secret of correcting the attitude of others and that is to correct my own.

It usually begins with the one in the mirror.

I will turn away from any temptation today that might cause me to break my word or lose my self-respect. I am positive that the only thing I possess more valuable than my life is my honor.

Don’t say it, if you cannot do it.

I will work this day with all my strength, content in the knowledge that life does not consist of wallowing in the past or peering anxiously at the future. It is appalling to contemplate the great number of painful steps by which one arrives at a truth so old, so obvious, and so frequently expressed. Whatever it offers, little or much, my life is now.

It took trial and error, but Og began making good choices.

Here is an insightful article about Og Mandino’s early years.

Parts of this Blog are taken from The Seeds of Success, by Og Mandino.

Sow Some Seeds (Part 5)

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Can you imagine if God handed us the book of our life?

We could see from start to finish what our lives would entail. What we would achieve, and when we would die? That would be awful! It would take the will to live out of life, and there would be no mystery to our path. God is big, and so are His plans Thankfully, He prepares us by giving a little each day.

Here are today’s seeds:

I will work convinced that nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. To do anything today that is truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.

I will face the world with goals set for this day, but they will be attainable ones, not the vague, impossible variety declared by those who make a career of failure. I realize that you always try me a little first, to see what I would do with a lot.

I will never hide my talents. If I am silent, I am forgotten, if I do not advance, I will fall back. If I walk away from any challenge today, my self-esteem will be forever scarred, and if I cease to grow, even a little, I will become smaller. I reject the stationary position because it is always the beginning of the end.

When my daughter becomes discouraged about achieving a goal, I tell her, “If you want it badly enough, nothing can stop you.” It’s not easy, and if it was, everyone would do it. There is no failure. We learn in the midst of trying. If it looks hard, get excited! It’s the hard stuff that makes us better.

A challenge equals promotion, so give it a little wink, and walk right through it like the mighty warrior you were made to be.

Sow Some Seeds (Part 4)

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Why am I writing this series?

In the spirit of giving, I wanted to give something beautiful to you. It may not be all my own words, but it is my heart.

Here are today’s seeds:

I will live this day as if it were Christmas. I will be a giver of gifts and deliver to my enemies the gift of forgiveness, my opponents, tolerance, my friends, a smile, my children, a good example, and every gift will be wrapped with unconditional love.

I will waste not even a precious second today in anger or hate or jealousy or selfishness. I know that the seeds I sow will harvest, because every action, good or bad, is always followed by and equal reaction. I will plant only good seeds today.

Words are like seeds. Every word we speak out-loud is similar to sowing seeds, and our lives are an open field. My daughter and I don’t say the word, ‘Hate’, out-loud. We may dislike what is happening, or the words of others, but let it go! Whatever is in our hearts will grow, so have no hate.

I will treat today as a priceless violin. One may draw harmony from it an another, discord, yet no one will blame the instrument. Life is the same, and if I play it correctly, it will give forth beauty, but if I play it ignorantly, it will produce ugliness.

I will condition myself to look on every problem I encounter today as no more than a pebble in my shoe. I remember the pain, so harsh I could hardly walk, and recall my surprise when I removed my shoe and found only a grain of sand.

Do you have a favorite pair of shoes?

You know, the ‘go to’ pair, that your foot slips easily into, and you could wear them all day. My favorite pair became so uncomfortable I asked my daughter for a new pair for Christmas!

I couldn’t believe how painful it became after being so comfortable! It felt like something stabbing into my foot every time I took a step. I reached my hand in several times, and felt nothing sharp, but as my foot pressed down, I felt pain.

My daughter mentioned that she had lost an earring. Flipping the shoe over, and looking at the sole, there was her earring. Pulled it out, handed her the stud, and my shoe felt good again. Such a small thing can cause great pain, but once aware, it can be removed. Every problem is a pebble.

Taken from The Seeds of Success, by Og Mandino.

Sow Some Seeds (Part 3)

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What resonated with you in yesterday’s post?

My daughter’s favorite part is, “I will live as all good actors do when they are on stage-only in the moment. I cannot perform at my best today by regretting my previous act’s mistakes or worrying about the scene to come.”

My favorite is, “I will embrace today’s difficult tasks, take off my coat, and make dust in the world.” Make dust in the world. Let’s replace dust with ‘glitter’, because that is why I’m here. To sprinkle some glitter over someone’s day.

Here are today’s seeds:

I will remain aware of how little it takes to make this a happy day. Never will I pursue happiness, because it is not a goal, just a by-product, and there is no happiness in having or in getting, only in giving.

We are designed to live happy lives. If we sit in stillness, and devoid outside interference, we find happiness. It’s when we allow people, places and things to influence our surroundings that happiness becomes more difficult to see and feel. We don’t pursue happiness. It’s in our hearts.

I will run from no danger I might encounter today, because I am certain that nothing will happen to me that I am not equipped to handle with your help. Just as any gem is polished by friction, I am certain to become more valuable through this day’s adversities, and if you close one door, you always open another for me.

Trusting God. I didn’t want to go through Chemo last year. It went against everything I believed in! Every doctor confirmed it was the best route to stop the Cancer growth, and then shrink it down for removal. There is a saying out there that says, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” Today, I compare every obstacle to Chemo.

I didn’t know I could get through it until I did.

We are called Diamonds for a reason. There is polishing through adversity. We can go it alone, in our own free will, or follow God.

Sow Some Seeds (Part 2)

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What jumped out at you in yesterday’s post?

Besides being grateful each time my eyes open to a new day, there is one part that leaps off the page. “I am prepared at last to make you proud of me.” At 53, I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be! God never quits, even when I do.

Here are today’s seeds:

I will not fret the future. My success and happiness does not depend on straining to see what lurks dimly on the horizon, but to do, this day, what lies clearly at hand.

Worry is future thinking. Stay in today.

I will treasure this day, for it is all I have. I know that’s it’s rushing hours cannot be accumulated or stored, like precious grain, for future use.

I will live as all good actors do when they are on stage-only in the moment. I cannot perform at my best today by regretting my previous act’s mistakes or worrying about the scene to come.

I will embrace today’s difficult tasks, take off my coat, and make dust in the world. I will remember that the more productive I am, the less harm I am apt to suffer, the tastier will be my food, the sweeter my sleep, and the better satisfied I will be with my place in the world.

I will free myself today from slavery to the clock and calendar. Although I will plan this day in order to conserve my steps and energy, I will begin to measure my life in deeds, not years, in thoughts, not seasons.

Be productive, not just busy. Embrace what is in front of you that needs to be done. Be a finisher. There is not a lot on my calendar. It mainly holds my daughter’s schedule because I love seeing each new day for what it is. New!