This is my sign and my reading for today. How can it be any more accurate?

PISCES (Feb. 19—March 20): For six and a half months in 1881, James Garfield was president of the United States. More impressive than his modest accomplishments during his short time in office was his multilingual ambidexterity. He could write a passage in Latin with one hand even as he wrote in Greek with the other hand. That kind of skill reminds me of the aptitudes you will have in the coming weeks, Pisces. If you so choose, you'll be able to take multitasking to profound new levels. Juggling will be your ruling metaphor. You may even be able to make a beautiful mess with one hand while creating a dynamic peace with the other.

So, life is about balance and at this point I just pray I can continue to breath through it all. A daughter headed off to prom amidst testing and prepping for finals. A son preparing to go to prom as he spends lunches with friends and enjoys Senior activities. Grad night is approaching as well as graduation and parties. Packing up his room and boxes will soon be labeled. Before this must come the addressing and labeling of invitations, the menu for the upcoming open house and preparations and planning for grandparents arriving for all the festivities. Our church celebrates through a “bridging ceremony” where we will celebrate the next path fifteen of our youth will be crossing over. How many tears will fall that day! Senior pictures today, and time yet to grab last minute accessories for prom for both Bry and Brit. Can it be that life has continued at such an amazing speed and seems to be no where closer to slowing down? Breath! Breath! Is it time and if so will I step up to the challenge and send them on their way with love and blessings?

“If you so choose, you'll be able to take multitasking to profound new levels. Juggling will be your ruling metaphor. You may even be able to make a beautiful mess with one hand while creating a dynamic peace with the other.”
Blessings-

The house is quiet as the men have left and Brit lies catching up on reading. Something she has put to the side for months while studying for school. Summer is just around the corner and break is almost here, so she has spent time stocking up on poetry books, etc. to begin diving into during break. This leaves for me a quiet moment with coffee, birds singing, and my computer. I write in spurts as you all know by now and morning seems to be the best time for me to get any thinking, written down. Once again we have passed through winter and with this one, we spent many days wondering if the rain would ever cease. As they continued to report yet another week of rain, my mood sank and dreams of the market were squelched. This has all passed finally and is just a memory now as the fruit surrounds us and the smells of the orchards permeate the air! My trip to the market this week was a blessing and the gifts abounded as I stocked up on prickly cactus to add to our eggs, snap peas that are sweet as honey, plump, sweet tomatoes, green spinach, and cilantro as well as bunches of fresh asparagus. What I live for and love!!! The freshness of living in the valley and having produce abound! This also brings with it the scents of spring which I love and cherish. I usually cannot get enough of the smell of blossoms this time of year. Driving out of the mountains this week with students, however, I was taken back by the overpowering fragrance of the orange orchards on the edge of town. Something I love in small amounts but as you drive by this time of year it is as though you cannot wait for that fresh breath of clean air. You know how it is when you have seated yourself on the crowded subway or in a closed office right next to that one person who decided to bathe themselves in a bottle of sweet powdery fragrance before running out into the world? Well this is how it can be at moments when driving past the orange orchards in spring. Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore the orchards, the blossoms, the bees, and the scent of sweetness all around. However, as in all things, too much of a good thing is not always so good and this is how it is at times for me with the orange trees in full bloom. I am happy to say however, that they are but a mile from my home and so I can enjoy these blessings at all stages of the seasons and so I plan to wait a bit before I venture out that direction again. For now, I will keep it subtle and enjoy the orange blossoms gracing my backyard. The lemon tree is in full blossom as well and the jasmine just finished its parade of blossoms. Before that we were honored with the scent of freesias in all their glorious fragrance. So, you see as I walk my gardens, the smells change as do the many blossoms filling our gardens. I am happy to say among the current blossoms we have sporting their colors are the passion vine, the kangaroo paws, and the bird of paradise. These are some of my very favorites along with the bottle brush tree that joined us last season and is now three times the size it was when it arrived! Wayne and I spend much of our at home time among the flowers and trees that we have added to our home since arriving. We also spend an insane amount of time watching over each new batch of Morning Doves that arrive over our patio. Mama Dove is on batch three already this season and the other two nest fulls wander the gardens daily. These are the quiet moments I cherish in a life that is filled too full with end of school activities, children’s events, prom and graduation planning, social outings, business engagements, and the soon to be and greatly awaited arrival of grandparents. Perhaps this is the balance my life finds between the busy daily organizing and meeting of expectations of others and the quiet still giving my gardens provide. In this intense mixture, is the calmness I find to enjoy and cherish each moment from one extreme to the other.

New Chapters

We spent the night before, traveling along the edge of the coastal mountain range. Once again amazed and in awe of the beauty of this area. There was excitement as we traveled! We were about to have a glimpse into the pages of the new chapters in Bryant's life. I, of course, shed a few quiet tears as we made that drive, knowing everything was about to change. When you are told as your child is a toddler that you must enjoy it all, because the years go fast, you nod and agree. Never, could I have imagined just how fast those years really travel. Bry has been so much fun over the years as he changed from this young child who had to spend time each night lining up every toy in a perfect row before he could go off to bed, to digging holes deeper than he could stand in, in the back yard. We cheered him through his short love of wrestling as he grinned and held high those trophies! The soccer years were some of the best times! We loved the years we spent cheering him on as he ran those fields and spent all his free time watching the games on tv. We spent years homeschooling, where we learned so much as a famly. It was wonderful to have the experience of learning with my children and our homeschool group. Music has been his love since he was born! He has spent so much of his life enjoying and playing it. Our children have been lucky to have many musical influences in their lives, beginning with their father. He began singing to the children before they were born and continues to gift them with music having to make quick stops by the store on his way home at night because yet again he has thought of a CD they must add to their collections. And there were so many others that helped to fill this love for Bry. On a trip we took to Springfield years ago with our homeschool group, Bry fell in love yet again. This time it would be with architecture and this would lead us to the very campus we traveled to in order to begin Bryant's next chapter. To enter this space was inspiring as we walked a campus that had been established in the 1800s and to hear those that would be the very persons to push Bry to learn and stretch his imagination over the next six years. Amazing people and beautiful buildings are what awaited us as we left the subway and walked the short path to the entrance of UC Berkeley. Clicking on the arrow at the title of this post will take you there as well. You can then experience a bit of the energy we felt as we walked the campus and listened to many beautiful people that day. As we sat and listened to the band and then the many speakers who graced us with their time, I again shed a few silent tears and was covered with joy and excitement for the possibilities waiting for Bryant as he enters his next chapter in life. To hear the dreams of the architecture school of developing a world that will be earth friendly and that will not contribute but lessen global warming. To listen as they described their dreams for urban development. These are the things that Bry knew would fill me with inspiration. As we walked out of this presentaion and entered the paths of beauty, Bry turned grinning and asked if I liked the place now that I had heard their ideas for our future. We toured the dorms and all they had. This is where our son would live and grow. He would make new friends and study through the nights. Bry is lucky to have several friends of his going off to Berkeley with him and they have spent a lot of time comparing notes and helping each other learn all there is to learn over the last few weeks. We walked the paths and breathed in as much as possible that day. Brit and I enjoyed a dance performance as the guys watched a baseball game. They were playing Stanford that day and the guys had to see how we look. There were of course a couple protests that day on campus because it would not be Berkeley if there weren't. We filled our bags with information galore! We left the campus and walked the short way back to catch the subway out of town. We crawled into the car and headed to the closest coffee shop to prepare for our trip back home along the edge of those majestic mountains. They will be what cradles my son as he rides from our home to school on the train with friends. These will be the sights we see over the next six years as we travel to and from the campus. As we drove along side these beautiful mountains, the cell phones were out and we listened as Bry called yet another relative or friend to relay all the fun he had had at his new home in Berkeley. May these next chapters bless himand may he bless this world with his creations!

Balance

Several years ago a friend gave me a rock. This was not the first rock I had been given or the first rock I had collected. Truth is, I am a rock person and I spend hours searching for just the right rock. I also find myself turning the corner at times to find just the right rock when I wasn't even looking. This rock however was amazing and captured my entire interest. There was something about this small, smooth object that took my breath away and that would stay with me forever. If only I knew at that time just how this rock would become such a major part of my life. Rocks. Either you get them or you don't. Either way is fine but for those of us who have a connection with rocks, there are some that have no match. This such rock was that type. This rock was smooth and dark gray. It's uniqueness came in that it had a perfect circular hole all the way through it. It was perfect! It could not be man made but how did it happen? I was told she had found it at a beach in CA but could not remember quite where it was. She just felt it would be important for me. Wow! How some know things about us long before we do, ourselves. Many years later I have come to find that my favorite place to spend any free time I may have is at a beach filled with rocks just like this gift handed to me so many years before. I have spent hours over the last year walking this beach and collecting those rocks that seem to want to join the many rocks we have in our home. It is amazing to me when two opposites join and the fact that my favorite things in life, rocks and the ocean, have become such an important factor in my life. It has become a joke in our home. We go to the ocean and most pictures of me show me walking the beaching with coffee in one hand and rocks in the other. I have had many fun talks with other rock collectors while walking the beach early in the morning while most people are still cuddled in their warm beds. These are the times, coffee in hand and rocks filling the other, when I know that I have arrived! May we all find time to find that balance in life when opposites make sense and life is just a breath of pure happiness! Blessings-

Birthday Blessings

All I wanted for my birthday this year was to see the blossoms which are in full bloom. The almonds were at their peak blossom over my birthday and my wish came true. We traveled out to a nearby orchard to walk. As we left the car and entered the orchard the air was filled with the scent of blossoms! This was however joined by another sensation I was not expecting. Since I was quite young, I have dreamed of some day being a beekeeper. The air all around me brought back these dreams and my excitement grew! Not only was I to be blessed by the beauty and scent of the blossoms, but the air was filled with a sound and energy I had not expected. As we entered the trees, the hum of the bees was amazingly loud. The bees were everywhere! They hummed and hovered about the blossoms as well as about us. What has entered this space? Who are these intruders? They seemed to be content to just buzz a bit around us and go back to their work at the blossoms. With each new tree we explored, bees would come to swarm about. It was a thrill to reach out towards the blossoms and have the bees hovering all around, checking us out. It is amazing how they work. They are on a mission and they work so hard. To see those with pollen on their legs and watch as they worked, traveling back and forth from the hives was humbling. I sat for a bit at the base of a tree filled with the scent of the blossoms and the sound of the busy bees, knowing my birthday was complete. As I travel to the Farmers Market next to purchase yet more of our local honey, it will be nice to remember my time with the bees and how they blessed my birthday. May we all take the time to remember where our blessings come from and all the work that goes into bringing our food to our tables from the soil, rain, sun, bees, farmers, workers, and those who stock the shelves or drive the trucks. May they all be blessed for the gifts they give us. May we all stop to enjoy the blessings we receive each moment of our lives.

Sweet Sixteen

Could it possibly be here already? Brit could not wait and I was hesitant. It seemed just moments had passed since she was placed in my arms. Life has been full with this young energy. She is so excited to have fun at all times. This was true also as this birthday aproached. She could just not contain her giggles as she counted down the days! She planned her party and anxiously awaited. With ideas and help from many, the day came and her gathering was a success! A house full of teens!!! The was music, food, lights, a campfire with so'mores, etc. How fun to be a teen and so full of life! It was an honor to share this special moment with such anamazing young lady. To have watched her grow over the years through toddler years and on through the homeschooling years. Through hours of dance lessons and the enjoyment of listening to her practice various forms of music. She has been a breath of fresh air filling our house with constant energy. She has matured and become a young lady filled with love for all and concern for her community and those who need an extra hand. May her life be enriched for years to come. Happy Birthday Miss Brittany.