Less Than Five Months...

If you are a regular reader of mine, you know that I am engaged and will be married.  What you may not know is that the wedding is set for October, so the date is fast approaching.  We have a lot of our decision already decided.  We have the venue and catering, date, dress, DJ, photographer, with only the details of each to consider.  Only big things remaining are the flowers, cake, invitations (although our guest list is made) and rings.  It is amazing to consider how fast life gets away from us.  It seems only yesterday that my fiance and I were looking at venues, trying to find that place of our dreams.  Now, we are needing to find time to tie up loose ends.

This caused me to consider how time flies and how we get caught up in life.  All this comes into perspective when you have a moment to reflect.  This moment comes for me everyday when I log into this blog but it also comes when I have a moment to watch something as simple as the birds visiting a feeder.  I got to enjoy the birds, squirrels and other various creatures while over visiting Pawpaw yesterday.  It was during this time that the bright colors of the males were brought up again (not unlike a previous post).  My fiance brought up a point that I had forgotten in consideration of the coloring of the males.  True, they are brightly colored to attract a mate but it serves a deeper purpose as well.  The bright colors makes them more susceptible to being captured by birds of prey, meaning the females are often times spared in order to continue raising their young.

Watching birds go about their business is very comical and peaceful.  To guess which birds are babies, just beginning to fly and as a result, shed their baby fat is an enjoyable experience.  How they interact with the squirrels or how the squirrels work their way around the man-made contraptions we build to keep them out. I hope that in less that five months, I will not miss the life passing us by, the enjoyment and celebration that is the time building until the wedding day.  Almost everyday, we text about looking forward to that fateful day.  And each day, we remind each other that while the day is exciting, we can't wish our lives away.  Afterall, we might miss a lot in between.

As the morning passes, I am enjoying the company of our little dog, Molly and the comfort that only corn muffins and coffee can give you.  Dinner is ready to be turned on and the TV is already on.  I am watching Sex and the City for now, ironic as Carrie Bradshaw is a writer and I am writing while watching.  Work will come soon and the day will continue to progress as normal.  I can rest easy knowing I come home to a puppy that will love me unconditionally, a fiance that will open his arms for me and a bed I can fall into at the end of the night.  And all my family is simply a phone call away.  Life is good.

Reflecting on Gluttony

This weekend was to be spent celebrating the woman who brought you into the world.  We do special things for our mothers, take them to meals, buy them flowers and in general, dote on them as they did for us at one time.  I had such an enjoyable weekend celebrating with both my mom and my fiance's mom.

Saturday, my fiance and I drove into Greensboro, North Carolina area to spend time with my family.  My mom, dad, baby sister and my fiance and me went to lunch and enjoyed a filling meal.  Afterwards, the silliness commenced with my baby sister and I carrying on through the grocery store.  This silliness was reinforced with the arrival of our middle sister.  After dinner, a dance around the house commenced, the rest of my family doubled over in laughter.  From what I am told, there is a video of this activity as well.

Today, we drove into Roanoke, Virginia in order to visit with my fiance's family.  The day began with his youngest niece's dedication at Villa Heights Baptist Church.  We all chuckled as how his other niece was eager to be held in the arms of the pastor performing the dedication.  From there, we went with my fiance's sister and her family and both of his parents to lunch, enjoying the laughter and company of family.  A surprise was waiting for me at my fiance's parents house after a card had so generously been given to me in honor of my impending stepmom status in just a few short months (more to come on the wedding plans)!  A bouquet of garden roses was given to me, their perfume so sweet I felt as though I was walking through gardens.  Our final stop for the day was to enjoy the company of my fiance's paternal grandfather, Pawpaw, and step-grandmother.

Now Pawpaw, out of all the family I met, is one that can always make me nervous.  He is a very nice gentleman and couldn't be more welcoming a spirit.  He is also a longtime pastor who commonly travels to speak at other churches.  I think due to his profession in both the community and in the family causes me to realize that he is one that needs to approve.  We were all talking about how life had been treating us and how our day had gone and Pawpaw and his wife discussed how they were stuffed from an ornate and elaborate Mother's Day brunch at +Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center DoubleTree Hotel .  At this point, Pawpaw paused and jumped into a moment of reflection about how my fiance's Uncle D and himself had gone to East Congo and South Sudan and other Third World countries and witnessed the depth of poverty first hand.  How to have seen such poverty and starvation can really put into perspective the wealth that we have at hand, Pawpaw referenced a questions he raised to Uncle D about how can he cope with sitting to a steak dinner.  His answer rivaled that of Spiderman in that with great privilege comes great responsibility.

I continued to reflect on this while riding home with my fiance.  We stopped at +McDonald's for dinner and order plenty of food.  I quickly realized I had ordered way too much and the thought of those less fortunate came into mind.  Not even exclusive of those outside of our country but those that live in our own neighborhoods as well.  We are a nation of great lust of all kind.  One we particularly indulge in is that of Gluttony.  One of the seven deadly sins I learned about while growing up, Gluttony can easily be related to several of the other deadly sins, including that of sloth, lust and jealousy, each in their unique ways.  This falls into the sermon at the dedication about Sodom and Gomorrah and the lusts that took place at that time in that city.  We are quickly becoming a society based on hedonistic tendencies, moving simply to please our flesh and not feed any of our other needs, such as our emotions or intellect.

Juxtaposition between 1st world and 3rd world

We have an ever abundance of food it seems.  And yet, there are nutrition poor countries.  A big example that many potentially don't consider is Afghanistan.  Considering the soil in the country makes it difficult to support a great number of agriculture, wheat does well in the nation.  However, it takes an immense amount of wheat in order to make the money to support a family.  Poppy, though, grows just as easily and yields more revenue per acre for a family.  Poppy creates heroine, in turn creating the environment for drug lords to come in and dominant a society already run on the warlord system.  The country readily knows its people are starving while the government is concerned with its cash flow from the drugs flowing out of the country.  And yet, in overabundance, we do feast.

It seems a tall order to ask on Mother's Day and it may detract from what the day represents, but what better time to be concerned about other people in the world?  Including those who don't even have mothers to take them into their arms, to ease their pain, to feed their distended bellies or provide shelter so they might simply be children.  We take so much in our lives for granted and continuously forget those who have so much less than us.  While our country and waistlines grow, the populous of other countries may continue to shrink.  But does it not take all of us to create the world as we know it?  And if each life possess something of value, why is it that we do not do more to even help in our own backyard?  I am a strong supporter that you cannot begin to solve the world's problems if your own problems have not been resolved.  Reflect on this and consider what you may be able to do.

Birthday Wishes on Butterfly Wings

What has happened to me??  I know, I have been MIA for several days.  It has been a crazy few days, too!

My blooming tulips

Friday, we got my fiance's son for the weekend.  I got home around 7 and immediately went to making dinner and talking and entertaining the five year old.  He is very sweet but was a complete handful this weekend!  The most difficult ever!

Saturday, all three of us went to where my fiance graduated from high school with his sister and her two daughters.  All six of us were invincible, conquering arguments and hiking around a festival, saying "no" and "yes," backing each other up all the way.  We went to lunch shortly thereafter and then, visiting other family members.  We got back late that night and we all went straight to bed.

Cards and rhubarb tart!

Yesterday, Sunday, was my birthday!  Quarter of a century old, there was a packed day ahead of us.  Unbeknownst to us is exactly how long it would extend.  We took my fiance's son back by noon.  While there, my fiance took a tumble.  His ankle become swollen and he was in pain.  He bit his bottom lip, knowing my family was coming for dinner.  We drove back home (he drove) and he propped his foot up with ice while I did laundry.  My family came and brought strawberry-rhubarb pie (I LOVE rhubarb!  Try cooking with it, it is awesome!), presents and tons of well-wishes.

When we bid them adieu (much to our puppy's displeasure), Ryan admitted to me that he was in a lot of pain.  He asked to be taken to the Emergency Room.  What else was I to do but oblige?  I drove him to the hospital, helped him into the waiting room, where we awaited Triage and a bed.  His blood pressure was sky high as well as his pain tolerance.  When we finally got a bed, I helped to take his shoe off.

The doctor walked in.  He kind of stooped a little when he walked, had a beard and tired eyes.  He expressed he was already on his 6th cup of coffee and there since Friday.  Probably working a 72-hour, I told my fiance.  The doctor joked with us, trying to be good natured and make light of the situation.  Once my fiance got back from X-ray, he expressed that he was becoming annoyed by the jokes.  I also had been joking with him.  This launched us into a conversation about making light of the scenario.

I admire those men and women who work in a field such as medicine or law enforcement or any of the fields that are very serious and grave situations.  I can appreciate someone trying to have a sense of humor in the setting as well.  I love to joke when I am not feeling well.  I would rather bring smiles to a room and make myself feel better, than sit in silence while a busy room passes around me.  If I am not smiling in a situation like that, I feel as though everyone else is going at the speed of light and I am left behind.  I try and bring my fiance a smile every day, my family a smile every chance I can.  I try to smile every chance I can as well.

The butterfly

Friday night when I got home, I was welcomed with a kiss and two hugs, a bouquet of mixed-color tulips and a butterfly necklace.  Now, I stand in my kitchen and the tulips are blooming and perfuming the room.  My birthday wishes still linger in the air, the last bars from "Happy Birthday" echo in the apartment.  I saw my fiance off in his air cast and crutches, teaching him as much as I learned when I was on crutches a few years ago.  Sitting here now, enjoying some corn muffins and coffee before work, I reflect on the reasoning I was given the butterfly necklace by my fiance.

"It is said that when a dream is coming true, someone will see a butterfly crossing their path.  Well, honey, you are my dream come true."

Spring Cleaning

All your necessities: spray bottle, soap, gloves, rope to tie
your husband up unless he buys you flowers.

Last night, when I got home from work, I found myself busying around the apartment.  My fiance was out talking with some neighbors and I had said hello.  But when I went inside to put my lunch down, I was pulled to begin cleaning more.  Monday night was scouring the shower and last night, to go through several boxes and piles of paper.  My birthday is fast approaching and holds the possibility of my family coming to see me on that day.  And see the apartment.  I want it to look as presentable as is possible.

After being called by my fiance and asked to come back outside and then talking to the neighbors until almost nine at night, we came in.  My fiance was kind enough to go through the boxes I had pulled out and made dinner.  I wrote a quick blurb last night (sorry about that!) and worked on a project for a coworker.  We went to bed with an amount of peace.

This morning, after my fiance has left for work, I am sitting on the couch, indulging in chocolate chip pancakes (courtesy of muffin mix recipe) and a cup of coffee.  I began to think about the idea of cleaning.  Growing up, I hated cleaning.  It took away from time outside, in front of the TV or in a good book.  Time away from walking to the library or visiting with friends.  As a result, my room was almost constantly a mess.  I argued that I function in organized chaos, that when everything was clean, I couldn't find anything.

When I moved to college, I found myself trying to tidy up.  The room would get to a point where I would have to give in and begin organizing and making sense of everything around me.  Cleaning the way I have been lately has given me time to reflect on the way my cleaning has evolved.  Perhaps my lack of cleaning, my disorganization, was an outward projection of the inward chaos I was experiencing.  During that time, I was not a happy person.  I was struggling to keep the smile on my face.  I dreaded facing those kids at school.  The names and the cutting me down.  I drowned myself in my studies and playing violin but even the violin stopped bringing me a lot of joy.

It was then that either I or Fate needed to start cleaning.  Cleaning my life, that is.  In middle school, Fate allowed me to change schools.  I was able to get away from the darkness that lingered in every doorway.  No one knew what those other kids said.  A fresh start.  But Fate wouldn't allow me to get away that easily. We moved near the end of my high school career and I was plunged into a personal darkness.  I don't think it was until almost halfway through college that I began to try cleaning my life.  I tried to eliminate the negative energy in my life and surround myself with positivity.  That's when I began to clean both inside and out.

Spring cleaning is something that happens every year.  We freshen the world and ready our houses for the upcoming warmer summer months, months of parties and celebrations, of cookouts and friends.  But we also must remember to freshen ourselves.  No, I don't mean taking a shower.  I mean an inward reflection of how our lives are.  Perhaps we have been putting off an adventure we want to take.  I, for example, hope to travel abroad again (of course, it will have to wait until after the wedding!).  Perhaps there is a hobby you have wanted to take up but haven't had the opportunity to as of yet.

When it comes to Spring Cleaning, there are many possibilities.  Open yourself to life as it is currently and what life can be if you allowed yourself to experience it.  Cleaning doesn't stop when you Spring Clean.  You have to maintain the cleanliness.  Of the home and yourself.  Meditate or try new focus methods.  Spot clean something every week.  Go through clutter on occasion to eliminate excess.  When we live in excess, we are excess.  When we live with necessity, we are necessary.  Until next time, enjoy a thing called, "La Vie."

Les Larmes et Les Pétales

Paul Eluard, poet.

As some of my readers may know, but many of you probably don't, I studied French and International Relations in college.  I found the political science aspect of this degree fascinating, but the language component entranced me, as it always has.  I have fallen in love with language over all the years I have studied.  In my final year at school, I submitted and was accepted to present research in a school-wide abstract competition called SOURCE (Symposium on University Research and Creative Expression).  My abstract was in conjunction to the differences in languages and how meaning can be lost in translation.  My study focused, more specifically, on the poetry and English translations of Paul Eluard.  I loved his poem "La terre est bleue comme une orange" (The Earth is blue like an orange) specifically for the title.  How can someone say such a statement?  It doesn't make sense.

Well, in short, I won the competition in my category.  I really enjoyed that research.  Perhaps I will expand on it if I ever attend graduate school.  The reason I bring this up?  Since school, I subscribe to a thrice-weekly blog written by an American woman who is married to a Frenchman and lives in France.  She uses this blog as a means to define and grow vocabulary for anyone who is interested in learning French or expanding on their French.  On Friday, I got one of my mailing from this blog.  And the phrase which used the vocabulary of the day hit close to home.

"Les larmes sont les pétales du coeur." --Paul Eluard

"Tears are the petals of the heart."  Or, more plainly, Tears are the heart's petals.  But what can it mean?  What is behind the phrase?  If you think about what petals are, they are the decorative expression of the flower.  So it can be congruent to the tears being the outward expression of an inward pain, love, desire or other emotions.  As well as considering the meaning of the the language itself and the deeper meaning, what emotion may be lost in the translation?  In French, there seems to be lilt, a pattern to the language.  It is similar to the idea that when you translate a poem that is originally in a foreign language to your mother tongue.  You lose the rhyme and rhythm that was put into that poem for a reason, a purpose.  If any of you have ever studied poetry, you know everything is deliberately put or not put in the words.  The symbolism, the rhyming pattern, the language used, the lack or presence of punctuation.

The next time you pick up a piece of literature, I invite you to read about the author.  I was taught in school to learn about the author because that way, you can learn what the author may have want to achieve or why they wrote this piece of work.  You can also discover if it may have been transliterated for ease of reading and review.  At that point, you consider what may have been lost.

Until next time, I bid you adieu.  I am sure not many of you missed me over the weekend but it was hectic and hairy!  Now, I move forward, propelling ever more subtly to the goal, into the night.  And remember..."Do not go gently into that good night."

Once Around the Color Wheel

Our world is so vibrant and beautiful.  But how much of that beauty do we really recognize and admire?  I am fortunate enough to have time in the mornings every other week to take me time in the morning, embrace the hours as they pass and enjoy the day as it slowly welcomes me.  How about you?  In your rushing about in the morning, do you ever stop to looking around, to smell the roses?
What about the colors that surround you?

Before I was at my present job (as little as 6 months ago), I worked at a sign fabrication shop for 2 years.  I will give you a moment to let that soak in....are you good?  OK.  Because I thought the same thing.  I had gotten done with college and had a summer job but at the end of the summer, I had no where to go.  A new retail company opened a month after that and I was offered a job.  Within 6 months (after having two jobs and letting one go), I was back to having two part time jobs.  One of them was at this sign company.  Over the course of two years, I was offered a full time position and the position began to evolve.  Before my departure to my current job, I was work in the vinyl department in the company.  I worked with different materials, colors and computer programs.  This caused me to think about the colors in the world around me.

I remember driving home one day and looking up at the sky.  That day, the sky wasn't light blue or dark blue.  It was Euro Blue, a vinyl color.  I realized then how much working with the vinyl had caused me to take a new appreciation for color around me.  As an artist, I am in love with color and this job had given me a new appreciation for color.

Walk in wildflowers!

When was the last time you picked up a crayon box and went through the crayons?  Or when you noticed and tried to actually name the color in the sky or in the grass?  These are things that we grow out of.  What once gave us, as children, such joy, we begin to notice does not give me as much zeal and we begin to take things for granted.  But how can we do this and continue to grow?  To move forward, we should remember where we have come from.

The next time you are in a rush, if you can, slow down.  Look around you.  Remember that the things around you are not just blue or green or gray.  Look at a bouquet of the same flower and you can see the differences.  In color, in form, in style.  Isn't that what makes them beautiful?  If everything was identical, where would be the excitement and curiosity in that?  Enjoy exploring your world and a thing called, "La Vie."