SUNSET ALERT!!! SUNSET ALERT!!!!

Determine HOW Great at 38

"Life gives to all the choice. You can satisfy yourself with mediocrity if you wish. You can be common, ordinary, dull, colorless; or you can channel your life so that it will be clean, vibrant, progressive, useful, colorful, rich. You can soil your record, defile your soul, trample underfoot virtue, honor, and goodness, and thus forfeit an exaltation in the kingdom of God. Or you can be righteous, commanding the respect and admiration of your associates in all walks of life, and enjoying the love of the Lord. Your destiny is in your hands and your all-important decisions are your own to make."
~Spencer W. Kimball

I choose VIBRANCE!

The Shell

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself in Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica. I was awed by the beauty of the country, but specifically by the beach I was on. It was a rather small cove surrounded by lush trees. One tip of the cove was black volcanic rock spotted with urchined native plants growing from every crevice. The other, a tree infested outcropping, so green it made your eyes hurt. Out along the horizon, four separate islands of varying size, stood as sentinels, appreciating the focus every eye gave them as one looked out on the horizon. The beach was definitely the cleanest beach I had ever seen, there wasn’t any seaweed or garbage, only an occasional coconut or log.

Daily I walked from tip to tip, with soft sand at the bottom of my feet and the cool surf occasionally washing up around my ankles. As an avid shell seeker, there was slight disappointment, as there were no shells to seek, hence there was very little reason to look down, except to see the myriad of footprints half washed away. So my thoughts would look forward and outward to the beautiful sea or to the tip of the cove, or behind me to see how far I had come. Occasionally I would look immediately down at my feet, or maybe a couple of steps away, but slowly I would find that again I would be focusing ahead, to my beautiful distant future.

One evening while walking back from exploring the far tip of the cove, my friends and I started separating, one stopping to take off her shoe, another stopping to take a photograph. I soon found myself behind the others, and my mind immediately looked up towards the sun spotted tip where I was heading. I then looked a little ways ahead of me and watched the pattern of my friends footprints as they danced along the shore, and then for one short moment, I looked immediately at my feet. And there it lay right at the inside of my foot, a beautiful brown and cream spiraled shell. The kind that you can only find in souvenir shops. I realized that if I hadn’t paid attention to my immediate present, A rare treasure might have been lost.

As we live life, there are times when we need to look out at our own beautiful future, planning and walking towards it, focusing on it and wondering about it, for we do need to know where we are going, and there are other times that we should look back at our experiences and see the shaping of who we are, evaluating each footprint and remembering how it brought us to our current self. Yet it is when we live the immediate present, we find the treasure of opportunity that is waiting for us, right at our feet.

The Nursery

Creating is a beautiful thing... especially if it involves the creation of new life to inhabit the earth. So many of you, on waiting on the arrival of your new little one, fix up the nursery. New paint, new crib...

Since I am in the station of life that I am in... and wanting to participate in some type of creating new life, I pulled together my own type of nursery..... new grow lights and new shelves...

Check out these babies! All 500 of them!

Face Off!

It was a face off... me against him.

I had just turned the corner when I saw him... staring off to the left.

I approached him going 20 miles an hour...

no flinch...

I slowed to 15 mph...

no stir...

he was clearly in the zone.

As I got within 10 feet of him... I had to do it!

I swirved!

I immediately looked back in the rear view mirror...

there he stood...

statuesque...

with glory, I am sure, blazing in his eyes.

It was then I had the realization....

I just played chicken with a duck!

Oh Flannigans!

Silly, Silly, Flannigans!

Rootange or Orange Beer?

As a child, the mixing of flavors is a common thing... you know... the whole lemon-lime idea or the strawberry-banana? But for me in my house it was the mixing of Rootbeer and Orange soda. Now I know what you are going to say....but before the words "disgusting", or "freaks" pops out, you can't knock what you haven't tried!!!!

It has been years since I have concocted this delicious elixir...until the other night when I spent some time with my younger siblings. Rootbeer and orange soda were served and immediately my childhood passions took over, half orange/half rootbeer.... oh man! Sheer delight! Memories of my childhood came flooding in...hardworking Saturdays, with homemade hamburgers and fries....camping reunions...

I think I "root" for the orange beer!