Around The Garden (Bermuda Style)

Well, my husband found out that taking a stroll with me in Bermuda can take a while....

There are just so many gorgeous blooms EVERYWHERE, and I wanted to be sure to get some good shots of them to take home.

SO...he was very patient, and took pictures of ME as I stopped every 10 feet or so to take another picture.

The resort where we stayed, Cambridge Beaches, was so breathtakingly beautiful it wasn't hard to find lovely things to snap a picture of.

There were bees at work...

delicate blooms swaying in the breeze...

and flowers in saturated colors that were so well paired with the buildings they were planted next to that it was truly a feast for your eyes ...

Gorgeous. 

All the while, if you just turn your head, nine times outta ten you will see water that looks like this:

I am kind of amazed that we were able to remain conscious.

AND, as if all this beauty wasn't enough, Mother Nature just had to throw in another delight....

a RAINBOW.

I have to say that winter in Philadelphia is going to seem especially hard this year.....

Bermuda Bliss

This year my husband and I celebrate 20 years of marriage.  Holy Wow. And for the first time since we had our children, we went away for a few days.....just the two of us.

Again, HOLY WOW.

I didn't realize how much we needed this time alone, away from it all, just to reconnect and recharge.

And what a picturesque, stunning place Bermuda is. I can't wait to share my pictures of all the gorgeous blooms, historic buildings, and colorful houses later this week! Stay tuned!....

Things I haven't Had Time To Tell You About

Here are some pictures that I have taken over the past few weeks. As you know a lot has been going on in my family...and there are things I haven't had a bit of time to tell you about. LIKE... at the end of October I went to the Pennsylvania Conference for Women...

I met so many wonderful women/fellow business owners, and got to see Martha Beck speak!

It was amazing. I am looking forward to now having a little time to implement all of the things that I learned about......

Oh, and Luna Lovegood came to my house on Halloween~ We all felt very honored! Harry, Hermione & Ron meant to come too, but life is pretty busy for them right now. I know they have to be tired after just so narrowly defeating Voldemort.

There was the beautifully textured bark in the yard that caught my eye in the evening.....

and I am sure I had all kinds of things I was thinking....clever things to write....

ideas I couldn't wait to share as I walked through the woods with my faithful sidekick on a beautiful fall morning....

but, for now, I am just glad that I have had a chance to share these pictures and look forward to some normalcy returning....with time to blog again!

My Life Lately: Anything But Routine

It has been a long time since I have written...my life has been anything but routine. An important part of owning your own business is setting goals and keeping deadlines...BUT another thing that has been important to me as a business owner is the ability to take time off when needed, as I have just done for the past month when my grandmother was placed in hospice care. I was able to be by her side as she went through the last weeks of her earthly life, and finally went on home. My grandmother was a creature of habit, a master of routines. As her creative, right-brained granddaughter, it made me a little nuts at times, especially as a teenager. But as I grew up and had a family of my own, and especially over the past few weeks as our family dealt with the stress and sadness of her passing, I noticed that I had a whole new appreciation for simple daily routines.

In our day to day lives, when is life ever really routine?? However, if life doesn't give it to you, here are a few gifts you can give yourself each day (yes, they really are gifts...just disguised as routines):

1. Make Your Bed Each Morning-- This simple habit has actually been shown to increase your happiness. Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project has written about it, and pulling up the sheets and comforter as soon as your feet hit the floor takes less than 5 minutes.

2. Give a Focused Fifteen Minutes to Manage Frustration--Is there a room in your house that seems to fall apart every time you turn around? For me (and many others, I am sure), it is my kitchen.

Each Morning, right after everyone is off to school and work (and the room looks like a box full of gremlins were let loose), I set a timer and quickly straighten and put away breakfast dishes, lunch making items and and anything else that is out of place. Most days I even have time to empty the dishwasher and wipe down the counter and table before the buzzer goes off. Getting this done before I settle into my work day helps me immensely.

What room and what time of day make sense for you and your house? This little bit of time each day can make a world of difference.

3. A Load a Day Keeps the Crazies Away--Does this sound familiar? On the floor is the heaping pile of clothes that needs to be washed, on the bed is the pile that has been washed and is waiting to be folded, and on the dresser is the basket with folded items that need to be put away. UGH--how overwhelming.

So much of our daily mess stems form this task that never really can be completed (someone is ALWAYS making more to wash!). Trying to get all laundry loads done at one time, or doing laundry ALL the time, catch as catch can, will wear you out like a pair of old underwear with a spent elastic band.

Completing one load from start to finish every day can give you a sense of mastery, accomplishment, and peace. Simply don't start a new load before the last is put away, and do the process all the way through (wash, dry, put away) once a day. You will be amazed at how easy it is, how little time it takes, how there isn't stuff just laying around in transition, and how good it feels to not have a  mountain of smelly socks staring you down on Sunday afternoon. I first started doing the laundry this way after reading about it via the Flylady...and each time I have strayed away from the method, I feel bogged down again by the task & I wonder why I ever try any other way.

Pick one of the routines I have listed above, commit to it for the next week, and see how it changes things for the better.  Simple routines can make stressful times (such as the holidays) more manageable, and give you more time and peace.

I wish you and those you love a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Giving thanks is another routine we should all practice daily. Amen!

Quiet Time

I love this picture. This is my Grandma and Grandpa at the Grand Opening of Disneyland's Tomorrowland, July 2, 1967. I chose to share this picture with you today since, first of all, it is Halloween~and who doesn't love a picture of some wicked cool spacesuits on Halloween?? Secondly, it captures the fun and sense of adventure that characterized my grandparent's marriage. They were married for 43 years, travelled all over the world, lived all over the United States, drank many a martini, and were completely devoted to one another in a very midwestern, "no public displays of affection, please" way that made many scratch their heads, but nonetheless had a whole bunch of love behind it.

My grandfather passed away in 1977, when I was just 5 years old. Even though I was so young, I remember this joyful, hilarious man who loved to read to me and cradle me in his lap.

Shortly after his death, I remember my mother bending down and whispering in my ear:

"Grandma is very sad. Why don't you go give her a hug?"

I looked into our living room and saw my grandmother quietly crying as she sat by herself.  I crossed the room, came to the side of the chair and reached my arms around her. She looked embarrassed to have been found overcome with emotion (did I mention the whole midwestern, stoic thing yet??) but gratefully accepted my hug, and so began our relationship, at least in my mind, which included rides to music lessons, picking me up from school when I was sick, letting me "run away" and stay with her for a week when I was filled with adolescent angst, and enduring a gut-wrenching, sucker punch of an illness that took my mother, her daughter, in just a few brutal months.

We shared that profound, earth-shattering grief....not that we really talked about it. We both just schlogged through our lives side by side, our heads cloudy, confused. I was an eighteen year old who had lost both of her parents within a span of seven months, and she was a seventy-four year old woman who had buried her beloved daughter. In the year following my mother's death, she told me she awakened each morning around 4am filled with a feeling of dread, a feeling that something was terribly wrong. Indeed something was.

While she didn't bake cookies, or even cook very well, she could play a mean violin. Even though she wasn't a gushy, kissy-kissy, affectionate grandparent, she added a sense of stability and foundation-building love to my life. She could be crabby, compulsive, particular--but she was a bright and talented woman who had worked hard to become an accomplished musician in an era when women didn't often do that sort of thing. She continued to play and pursue her passion after becoming a wife, after giving birth to two children, after becoming a grandmother to three little girls, after growing old and very weak. It is funny how a woman who so rarely showed emotion could teach me so much about how to live with passion.

I have taken care of her for the past six years, as she has declined and needed more and more assistance. Just this past week, I had to make the decision to place her in hospice care. Ninety-four years is an amazingly long time to live, and I know Grandma has filled those years with rich experiences. I am very grateful to have been her granddaughter.

Thank you for listening--I wanted to write and explain why I have been so quiet here on the blog. The doctor tells me she will pass on within the next month, and during that time I don't know how much I will be here. I will be there, spending time with her, hopefully helping her to make a smooth and peaceful transition to the best kind of Tomorrowland there is.