2012 ... this year

My birthday was last week ... Excellent! I love birthdays. So, we celebrate what was and what we hope will be.

There is a quote somewhere around here ...

“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next.  The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing. “ -Michael Gerber  (E-Myth)

... There we go ...

I think there is some black and white truth there. I'm leaning towards the gray of it.
Don't we make choices almost continuously ... and don't those choices shape us and our options for tomorrow? I would like to ... oh! There is another fun quote given to me this past year, lemme see if I can find it.

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to slide in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "Holy "bedoodle*", what a ride!" 

And I saw this one where that one was found ...

You can always close your eyes to the things you don't want to see, but you can't close your heart to the things you don't want to feel.

You can close your heart to things you don't want to feel, but your heart will break under the pressure. You can close your eyes and "go" somewhere else ... anywhere your imagination has the wings to take you to, but your heart stays behind. Better to stay "there" where your heart is, with your eyes wide open. Be responsible for your heart.

That may sound a little bluesy ... it's not, I'm not. Here is my top secret birthday wish this year ... I hope.

Somewhere along the way last year I figured out that hope is not the weak link in this string of powerful life building words ... Protects, Trusts, Hopes, Perseveres, Loves. I have come to believe that "hope" is a big word like the others, and totally belongs there in that idea. I said before, last year sometime, that I couldn't see actions around hope as I can around the other words, but now I do. I see invisible actions surrounding hope and hope right smack dab in the middle of these other four words whose actions speak louder then words can convey. Hope is a strong word, given as an act of communion with the still unknown ... Hope reaches towards God I think. And ... God has hopes for us as well.

I hope I can help him smile this year.
I hope he may find a happy laugh out loud when he glances my way this year.
I hope my feet may walk his way and I hope my hands may help and soothe another one of his own this year.

I hope I remember. And I tell myself to hang this wish on a flame and remember it with the scent of a Yankee Candle in my home and in the fire pit I've been wanting and am now cleared to construct in my back yard.

Hope: to cherish a desire with anticipation; archaic - trust

Slight change of topic: Well, two things I want to remember here:

One, briefly, yesterday the sermon was specifically on hope as an antidote to disappointment. Preacher chose to point towards Joseph whose story seemed to begin with the huge personal disappointment of being sold in to slavery (right beside a possible point of death I thought and then I realized that slavery might have been even more of a death then actually physically dying ... Joseph might have rolled up in a tight little ball where everything that made him Joseph died ... he may have drown in bitterness ... any number of "lessening" emotions may have driven his actions, but ... he prevailed ... superduperdouble WOW!) Joseph, the slave, lives what I would have to say was the life of a great man. Joseph rocked the slavery handicap, unshackled and brilliant. His personal disappointment positioned him for a divine appointment. The preacher encouraged us to think of our disappoints as such, and place our hope in God's good plan.

Two, at Lowes yesterday while husband procures longer screws to rehang a closet door for me, I wander off in pursuit of manufacturer info on a domed screen for my DIY fire pit. On the drive up I saw those bricks stacked in a circle with a screen cap exactly as I want to build myself. Perfect! Turns out the Lowes guys, in a stoke of marketing genius, have "veneered" a stand alone fire bowl (with screen). I wonder if it is possible to order a "replacement screen" ... and I go to collect the sku number of the bowl I might have started with. Over here the Lowes guys come in three varieties ... 1.) Unhelpful and grouchy about it/retired or laid off from their real job. 2.) Totally clueless college kid trying to make this month's rent. 3.) The guy who does this gig between hunting and fishing trips ... He either knows exactly how to do "this" or exactly how to southern engineer it ... He knows where the parts are that will make this project come together for me ... He doesn't think I can do "this", but he thinks it's cute that I am willing to try. Guy Number Three is the guy I'm looking for if I need help at the DIY store. Yesterday a GNT walked up to me as iPhone recorded info for my online fire screen search. "How can I help you?" I told him my exact plan and finished by saying I think I might be able to order the screen online as a replacement part. He said that was what he was going to suggest ... then he told me this story:

When his daughter was about three he had dumped some hot coals out of his BBQ grill at what he thought was a safe place for them to burn down, but his little girl had wandered up and stepped on them. He said as she jumped back in pain, she stumbled forward, falling on the fiery embers. He said he had no idea he could move so fast and that thankfully she bore no scars from the accident. Poor daddy. He sure does! I bet he thinks of that everytime he thinks of a fire. He thinks a screen is a good idea. Then he said this, "Isn't that exactly how it is with God? He looks on in horror as we walk to a place where we are going to get burned. He calls out warnings, but we aren't listening, we can't hear him (or we just don't want to). But, when we get burned, we run to him and find he wasn't very far away.
Guy Number Three came with a sermon.
I smiled.
"Then what happens?" he asked me and I said, "You tell me".
"He picks us up and starts making us right".  That's what he said.

53 W/ iPad camera ... end of day after whatever i had the pearls on for ... oh, yeah, a play.   I wonder ... when my kids look back thru this stuff when they are around this age ... how will it seem to them.  I can sometimes, when I see a picture, look all the way back.  That's how this one is for me ... not a good picture, but somehow it filters me.  I see me ... all the way back to college days ... I'm thinking about how to describe that expression, it looks a lot like me ... to me.  Thought to save it here for later.

V "styled" me here ... maybe I'm thinking about those pearls!  Near  my Birthday, I'm getting that LOL (Little old lady) look down!