Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

You may have noticed the blog has been a little quiet lately, but I have been working a lot and decided to end the year with a little break from the computer to spend more time with my family. I will have one more post this year...looking back on 2012 and looking forward to 2013, then we'll be back to normal in January.

"This is my wish for you: peace of mind, prosperity through the year, happiness that multiplies, health for you and yours, fun around every corner, energy to chase your dreams, joy to fill your holidays!"
                         -D.M. Dellinger

Be Calm In Your Heart

We are constantly surrounded by noise, trouble and hard work, but for many of us, we are rarely at peace. We have a hard time being calm in our heart. We are constantly rushing around, contributing to the noise and chaos. It can become frustrating being enveloped by this chaos, but this frustration only leads further and further away from the peace we desire. Being outwardly calm doesn't always equal being calm in your heart, but it can start you along the path towards peace.

One thing we all need to do is become better at accepting things as they are, especially when we can not change them. This acceptance helps to alleviate the frustrations and dampens the din around us. Part of being calm is knowing there are things of which you have no control and accepting this. We can't change everything about the world around us, but when we realize this, the world around us will change for us. As illogical as this sounds, the way we view the world makes the world what it is for us.

Let go of the frustrations over the things you can't control. Take control over the things you can. When you are able to orchestrate the things you can and feel no frustration towards the things you can't, calmness will begin to find it's way into your heart. As with every great thing we do, this won't be easy and will take time and practice. The more you practice, the easier it will become. 

Try Something Else

We take everything way too seriously. As a whole, we spend too much time stressed out about things that really don't matter. We look for meaning in every little piece of data we can find, failing to see that some things just happen. We try to control the world around us without realizing the only thing we have any control over is ourself (and sometimes even that is doubtful). By only reacting to the things happening around us, we never really live.

For most of us, we just need to let go and let whatever happens, happen. The "bad" things that could happen are usually not as bad as we think they will be and the "good" things we hope for are usually not as good as we imagine. Realizing we have little control of the world around us, we can instead focus on ourselves and how we interact with this world. We can work on how we react to the stimuli around us. We can really decide who we want to be, instead of trying to be the person we think everyone wants us to be.

This isn't easy. I don't even know if I am a good person to even talk about it as I haven't come close to perfecting it in my own life, but it needs to be said. We create a crazy world by spending so much time worried about what other people are doing or thinking. We create a world where bullying is the norm because we criticize differences instead of celebrating them. We create a world full of violence and hate because we are more worried about who are neighbor prays to than we are about how we act. We create a world full of difficulty because we take our thoughts and ideas so seriously we can't believe anyone would think something different.

We are all different people with different thoughts and experiences. This has led us to different beliefs and thoughts about what is important. These differences should be celebrated instead of feared. Instead of distrusting your neighbor because they are different, spend time getting to know and laughing with them. Instead of thinking everyone else is wrong, realize more than one person can be right. What is right for you may not be right for others. We are born, live our life and then die. Every one of us has this in common. We can't control everything that happens during the course of our life, but we can control how we look at each day and how we react to the things that do happen. Smile more. Laugh more. Stop taking things so seriously. Trust each other and help build a better, safer and more peaceful world.

It won't be easy and it may not make this world any better, but what we are doing now sure isn't working. Maybe it is time to try something else?

What if?

When you lay down to go to sleep each night and close your eyes, what do you think about? Do you think about everything you did that day? Do you think about what the next day brings? Do you think about your dreams and what you want to do? Do you think about all the things you haven't done? Do you think about all the things you have done and wish you didn't?

At different times, I have thought about all of the above. I have experienced feelings of happiness, love, accomplishment, guilt, shame and peace as I have laid in bed with eyes closed. I am sure most people have felt the same. Which of these would you prefer to have floating through your head and body as you try to fall asleep?

What would happen if you named your dreams and worked to make them happen? Would you be able to fall asleep knowing you are doing everything you can to chase what it is to make you feel alive? With this knowledge, would you be able to fall asleep happy and at peace?

By following our dreams and doing what calls to us, we won't eliminate all the negative feelings that float around when we are at the most relaxed. These feelings, these moments of doubt, happen to everyone. But, when we are chasing our dreams, we have an easier time ignoring them and pushing them away. It is easier to replace doubt with happiness and peace when we know we are on the right path.

Tonight, as you lay in bed, think about what it is you really want to do. Listen to your heart and see where it wants to take you. What would happen if you started to listen?

Giving Thanks Part 2

What would happen if we, as a world society, expressed our gratitude every day instead of at random times selected by the calendar? Would there be more peace and less war? Would people be able to get along a little better, no matter their race, religion, color or nationality? Would we be more willing to work together to solve some of the major problems plaguing the world? Would we be more likely to care about HIV epidemics in Africa or starving children throughout the world or the homeless in our own cities and towns? Would the world be any different? Would you be any different?

Garden and Flower Bed

So, after many days of work, the garden project is going strong. The veggie garden is currently planted with three varieties of tomatoes, five varieties of bell peppers (including lilac and chocolate), jalapenos (red and green), red chili peppers, eggplant, cucumber, buttercup squash, butternut squash, lemon basil and lavender. One small section of the flower garden adjacent to the house contains Italian parsley and sage.

I finally built the flower bed along the fence and planted this with zinnia, marigold, ageratum, celosia and poppy. Hopefully they all grow and look amazing! I plan on cleaning up the rest of the flower beds along the side of the house and plant some more flowers and/or more veggies. Once things really start growing, I will post some more pictures. For now, this is what it looks like:
I can’t express how relaxing I find gardening. It is a lot of hard work, but I feel more alive than I have in a long, long time. I missed this more than I ever knew.

"Gardening is the purest of human pleasures." -- Francis Bacon