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.
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.
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.
My daughter is at her Dad‘s, so I filled her shoes this morning, and took care of the puppo.
The puppy is sleeping in a crate at night in my daughter’s room, but I could hear it’s pleas for freedom. The next thing I noticed was how spoiled I’ve become waking up on my schedule.
When you open the kennel, she bolts out, full of energy! We should wake up like that every morning.
Excited to be alive and having a new day.
It seems like a long time since she brought home a puppy. She loves dogs and would have 48 if possible, so we’ve had a few dogs come in and out of our life.
Our home one year ago. Denver sunning on the step.
They always came with a purpose.
One stayed with us for 14 years while others were just passing through to their forever home. Two years ago, I walked into the barn to find one curled up on moving boxes. It was a big dog and startled me. Living out in the country people love to drop off dogs, and our little house looked like a good home.
I questioned the timing of getting another dog. She leaves in 10 days for England and doesn’t return until the new year. Guess who’s caring for puppo?
“You’re getting puppies instead of grand-kids.”, she says.
My future life. anoir-chafik-37957-unsplash
This morning would be different if my daughter were here. My daughter gets excited over puppo.
The puppo can feel her energy, and would be more energetic. After I released her from her kennel, I took her and her energy outside. I stood there and watched, but didn’t get excited, or encourage hyper behavior, I let her get it all out. Once back inside I missed my daughter making the Chemex.
She has about 30 minutes of puppy behavior every morning before she’s done and laying at my feet. That is how I know she has the good dog in her.
She lays at my feet while I write. She doesn’t run off creating chaos, causing me to leave the keyboard, and my train of thought. She waits for my move.
‘You are your environment’ works through dogs too.
My daughter returns home from her Dad’s today, but I wonder what puppo will be like when she returns from England? She’ll be gone almost four weeks, which seems like a long time for all of us.
The puppy will grow, but maybe I will too. I’d like to hop out of bed in the morning like she bolts out of her kennel. Maybe her purpose is to spark excitement, and mine is to show her about calm.
Driving home last night, this song came on the radio.
The one thing that can change my mood rapidly is, hopping in my truck, and driving somewhere, even if it’s just down the road 10 minutes away. It doesn’t have to be a long drive, just long enough to hear the right song.
There is something about being in my faithful truck, on a road, and hearing a good song that feeds my soul.
As I listened to the words in this song, it reminded me of why I write. To give hope. I’m not sure I’ve written anything to save someones life, but God will work through our writing to help change people’s lives. It’s His job to save.
I will tell you what you need to hear, and that you’re not forgotten. My hope is you can see a God who is more than all you ever wanted. We all need hope, and if you’re here, you’re not alone. Maybe God has called you to this Blog, and you will read something that will change your perspective, which is a good step toward changing your life.
I was sitting at my desk, planning parts of my day. I had typed up a message, but hadn’t hit send yet, when my daughter walked up, and stood at my desk. I looked up at her, and grinned, knowing that she wanted something.
She asked if I could take her to pick up her car from the shop. It was ready. I deleted the message, and said yes. I had been playing message tag with this gentleman all week, over a piece of furniture I have for sale. It can wait.
My daughter gave me this for Christmas.
Opening the pantry in search of a bottle of water, I find one bottle of water sitting there. My daughter and I drink water by the case! She left the last one for me. It’s what we do. We leave the last of something for the other person, but I have been known to become selfish over the last piece of chocolate.
Unfortunately, my daughter believes it’s normal how we treat one another. She expects the same treatment from friends, but they weren’t raised in our home. She wants to make new friends since our move, and she asked me yesterday, “Mom? How do you make friends?”
I believe we show people how we want to be treated.
My daughter went to one of her favorite coffee shops, to take a break from studying. Her friend texted her, she shared her location, and invited her to meet. Her friend walked into the coffee shop, and sat down with her.
Twenty minutes later, my daughter was home.
Their meetup was brief, because my daughter cut the visit short. She revealed her friend was on her phone the entire time, and actually face-timing another friend. After several minutes of seeing that her friend had no plan of getting off her phone, she excused herself, and came home.
Maybe our standards are too high in today’s world?
Yesterday, my daughter received a text from a friend. He was hosting a Bible study, and asked her to come. I encouraged her to go, not only for herself, but to be there for him. She was apprehensive not knowing the other people she may see, but wanted to see her friend.
I believed she saw her answer to her question from earlier in the day. The best way to make friends, is to be a friend.
I’ll begin with the shower from our previous home as an example. The spout didn’t function to the best of its ability.
This happened over time. When you turned the water on, it came out of the spout, and into the tub. The little knob you pull up, to send the water to the shower head had a problem. It has been used for years, and began to break under pressure. It was falling apart, and couldn’t completely stop the water from flowing out of the spout. The shower head couldn’t receive the full flow potential.
There was water spewing from the spout, and trickling from the shower head. It was like it couldn’t decide how much it wanted to give me, and from where. It wasn’t fun.
My landlord’s helper stopped by to complete an unfinished task, and I showed him the shower. He knew exactly what to do, and within the hour, had installed a new spout. Now the lever could stop all the trickling from the spout, and give a full force shower! The ginormous rain head, rained!
My landlord had no idea it was broken. He said, “You need to tell me these things before it breaks.”
When we moved into our new home, I found it ironic this shower had the same issue. It was like a test to see how long it would take for me to say something was wrong.
I quickly snapped a pic, and sent it to my landlord, asking him to please fix this. He sent his handyman to replace the spout, but once complete, he felt bad because the finishes didn’t match. I told him, ‘It doesn’t have to look perfect. As long as it works, and offers up it’s very best, we’re good.”
“Ideas, possibilities, hopes, dreams float around, circling us like asteroids around a planet. We may think events in our lives are happening aimlessly, without purpose. All we see are disconnected, floating blobs.”
“We reach for them, try to grab them in our hands so we can connect them, force them into a whole, force them into a picture we can see, something that makes sense.”
“Let the pieces be. Let yourself be. Let life be.”
“Sometimes, chaos needs to precede order. The pieces will come together in a picture that makes sense, in a beautiful work of art that pleases.”
“You don’t have to force the pieces to fit together if it’s not time. You don’t have to know. There is power in letting go.
“Power in waiting. Power in stillness. Power in trust. There is power in letting the disconnected pieces be until they settle into a whole. The action you are to take will appear.”
“Timely. Clearly. What you’re to do will become clear.”
(Excerpt from Melody Beattie~Journey to the Heart)
Letitgocoach 