mixing it up...

One of my most favorite mobile apps is Image Blender. You take two photos, the app does the blending but you get to decide how much of each photo shines through. Easy peasy. Just like Real Life, said no one ever.

Gage and the BSU Broncos was an easy pick. I call it, You can't take the football out of the boy. They are peanut butter and chocolate. Perfect together.

Stevie and the trees were a bit more technical. The photo of the trees was shot up, from the ground to the sky. How this photo blended so well with the beach and man, was pure accident. It is one of my favorites.

Now if only there were an app for Real Life. Image Blender for your life, give us your people, issues, problems and we will melt them together. Like they belong, and have always been this way. But alas, we all know this won't happen, isn't possible and most likely, we humans would find a way to mess this up too. Sometimes we want Something so badly, we would sell our souls to get it. Relationship that aren't working, marriages on the rocks, kids fighting and on and on. We will go one the way we always have, and hopefully, get better at it. No guarantees, no recipe for mixing all the things in our lives that we wish would just blend already. It is part of growing up, and there is always Room for that in all of our lives...

what is it about fall...

That makes us all weak in the knees? All we can think about is how many things we can make with pumpkins, with a few being edible?

It is all very magical, happens every year. We go into fall mode as if on auto pilot. No other season affects us this way. Most of us go kicking and screaming into winter and summer and those who get spring, live on the right side of their brains constantly and can't be added into the equation.

Fall reminds those of us who will be affected in a few months, that it is going to get down and dirty. The Powers That Be are predicting a big snow season for us. While I cringe on the outside, a part of me is saying, That is a long ways away. Liar.

I couldn't wait to wear a sweater yet have not put my shorts away. The hot cocoa, tea and spiced cider is now available in my kitchen and I have been dabbling, with my sweater on. We did get our annual trip to the pumpkin patch minus one. The times they are a changing and I must change too. Kids grow up and life id different. This will be our second Halloween when we split up the night. Hope to get my T or T photo before we scatter.

Yet I find myself daily playing, pin the pumpkin on Pinterest. Looking forward to a month of gratitude starting on Nov 1. I need to be reminded daily, of what I have and remember to be oh so thankful for every Moment. Anne Lamott's new book, Stitches, came in the mail today. She started this book the day after Sandy Hook. She weaves a picture of when our lives go bad, and they will, how we start by making a stitch, see if it holds and then make another. Joining piece after piece until a patch is made. We are never the same again, all that talk about closure is bull. We carry our grief forever, all held together by the patch, that gets us through another day. Thank you Fall, for the reminder that all we have is all we need. When more is asked for, more is given. All in good time, all in good time...

Little fish, Big Pond...

Most of our lives are lived as little fish in a Big Pond. There are natural periods of life where it is reversed. The last year of middle school you are a Big Fish in a little pond. You have worked your way up and get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Yet, in just a few short months, you enter high school, and you are back to being a little fish in a Big Pond. The emotional toll is staggering. It is an, in your face, time of your life. You feel helpless and it takes some time to get your bearings back.

Later, you might find by the nature of your work, you are a Big Fish in a little pond, again. Yet when you get home every night, you are immediately thrown back into real Life which lets you know, in so certain terms, that your Big Life is now, not so big.

Most of us spend most of our days as little fish. Swimming in that big, huge pond, called everyday life. For the most part, we are happy with where we are. Sometimes, some of us get so addicted to the Big Fish life and will sell our souls to stay there. We see it everyday, people who give up everything just to keep their ponds small and manageable. They seem huge and overpowering and love it that way.

I think we were made to live in Big Ponds. I think we are better people when you can't see where the pond starts or stops. We have all tried, at one time or another, to make our ponds smaller, thinking this would be the life...Little fish, Big Pond. Where do we live?...

the light...

Nothing says light quite like fall. Whether we are seeking it out for warmth, or a photo opportunity, the light has the ability to take us out of whatever world our minds are wrapped around and into, its own. A drive around the lake, it just what I needed today. To remind me of who is in charge and that all comes from the One who made it, and me. No words are necessary, it is about accepting and understanding, the best we can. It is about us, it is about light and how it all fits together in the grand Plan. Praise God for the reminder, I am humbled by the Light...

hitting the reset button...

Resorting to connecting the dots this morning because it was a long night and he really needs to do something simple to get started again...StoryPeople.

The truth is we each are all on auto for a reset, every morning. We choose to continue or change every behavior, thought, and deed. Every morsel that goes into our mouths, and every envious or jealous bone we exercise. We may see our days as all strung together, not being able to distinguish one from another but that is not really the true picture. Change can happen but we have got to want it. More than we don't want it. Much More.

It make take many days of change. They say it takes 21 days to change a habit, they are lying. It is an every day battle. It always will be. Some days may be better and easier but it is always lurking in the Background. The minute you forget and think it is gone for good, is the beginning of your own downfall.

Connect the dots every day. If we can do that, whether we stumble or not, we are going to be better for it. I have already done my connecting and it wasn't easy or fun. Hard work, that is why we have to do it every day. Show up, suit up, and go into your day. It is yours for the asking...

remember...

From the moment we realize that we can keep and store memories, we start. There are many, many mini brain scrapbooks inside each of our heads. When we are young, there seem to be an infinite amount of hard drive space that we have only to remember to. As we get older, we find this to be a cruel untruth of life. Not everything gets saved.

Now with modern technology, every meal, ever monument, every moment can be recorded and shared. We have no issue asking a complete stranger to take a photo of us, to remember the occasion. It cements us to a time and date. Concrete proof of a moment of time, that we will never have again. There is a reason that most of think, if there was a fire at our home, most of us would grab the hard drives with all these Moments we have made. We really are a sappy people, and there is nothing wrong with that, nothing at all...

made with Love...

We all tell our Stories, everyday...

He held up a photo of his wife with a tray of cookies and proceeded to tell her Story. She bakes a cookie sheet full of cookies every day, since her first child was born. Her husband tried to talk to her. It was too expensive and they would all gain weight but she said the cost was minimal, she made the cookies from scratch and no one was over weight. More importantly, she kept baking cookies. One day she shared her Story with him.

Her father made her childhood, less than bearable. She would wait for her two siblings and they would walk home from school together, safety in numbers. One day, she went to the home of a friend and the mother greeted them with a tray of cookies. The home was warm and inviting, and smelled heavenly. She never forgot...

We each have a Story to tell and Sometimes, it is as easy as a tray of cookies. You don't have far to look to see what you do today, tells your Story. It may be as visible as this Story or it maybe, that you will see Something for the first time. Stories were went to be told and shared. This is how we learn and grow. The very next morning, I served a tray of cookies to my family. What a Story, what a life...

You are my Wild...

I am your grandparent, you are my grandchild
I am your quiet place, you are my wild
I am your calm face, you are my giggle
I am your wait, you are my wiggle
I am your audience, you are my clown
I am your London bridge, you are my falling down
I am your carrot sticks, you are my licorice
I am your dandelion, you are my first wish
I am your water winds, you are my deep
I am your open arms, you are my running leap
I am your way home, you are my new path
I am your dry towel, you are my wet bath
I am your dinner, you are my chocolate cake
I am your bedtime, you are my wide awake
I am your finish line, you are my race
I am your praying hands, you are my saving grace
I am your favorite book, you are my new lines
I am your nightlight and you are my sunshine
I am your lullaby, you are my peek a boo
I am your your kiss goodnight, you are my I love you.
from MaryAnn K Cusimano... Revised.

Clean up, clean up,
everybody, everywhere.
Clean up, clean up,
everybody do their share.

This was the closing song at Miss S and Miss B's preschool.
Everyone knew what to do during the song.
Some did, some did not.
Over the course of the school year, it got better
and by the end of the year, it was fully engrained in all.

There are several thousand kids out there who, potentially
could be elected to serve our country through the
political system, someday.

This little song, could come in handy...