Dear Reader:

Some of my most favorite quotes deal with the mysticism of sunbeams (as cited in the examples below:)

“I am always humbled by the infinite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.” E. B. White *(See title painting)

Sunbeams seem to be magnets to poets, authors, philosophers, astronomers, artists and theologians…their thoughts on sunbeams span the diversity of man’s imaginations… without limitations.

*This is also true of some of us ordinary “Joe’s” who simply are just fascinated and drawn to sunbeams. Below are some of my favorite quotes on the subject…followed by my personal thoughts.

“If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely!” Roald Dahl

Isn’t this true? Don’t we all know people…who… by us simply listening to the tilt in their voices or observing the shine on their faces (lit by sunbeams)… witness an inner joy of life filled with such daily gratitude that others are drawn to the magnetic effect like moths to light?

Carl Sagan, a famous cosmologist explained sunbeams from his distinct perspective.

“We live on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” 

Now that quote  reminds us of the fragility of this planet we call home, doesn’t it”

I remember as a child loving to go to libraries of past-gone days, consumed by the scent of old dusty books… and sit in the window reading nooks…not only to read but to watch the dust motes flying around the room like little fairies.

It is still one of my favorite memories from my childhood. I often imagined me (like a fairy) catching a ride on a mote of dust being pulled away by a sunbeam to “Never Never Land.”

“Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of sunbeams.” – Helen Keller

In many of Helen Keller’s early memories, particularly before the “light literally came on for her” while still living in a dark, silent body… Helen would communicate to Anne Sullivan, her “teacher,” (that the only thing she could remember from those dark, disturbing days before she felt “water” and finally made the connection to outside communication and knowledge)…was holding her hands straight out in front of her and feeling the warmth of the sun beaming down.

Of course she had no idea what the sun was or what was making that wonderful feeling on her hands…but it was the only hope she had that there was something better out there than the silent prison of darkness she lived in as a young child.

“The light from a sunbeam can force us to fall back on blind faith.”

I experienced this quote (upclose and personal) a few days ago and it was  terrifying. This time of year…driving in the late afternoon (as the sun does down) is quite perilous. My eyes are weak from the side effects of my cancer removing all my eyelashes…which in turn water constantly. So I always have to wear sunglasses but even they can’t always help.

I was rounding the bend on Highway 17 heading towards my road cut-off onto Miler…when the sun caught me full force. For a moment I could not see one single thing in front, beside, or behind me. The whole car was consumed by light. I was desperately trying to pull the visors down…again to no success in blocking out the sunbeams.

I instinctively slowed down to almost a stop ….afraid someone behind me would slam into me or perhaps I had gone over the middle line…my heart was pounding. I found myself praying that my eyesight would be restored and I would get  home safely unharmed and/or not harming someone else.

A few seconds later…the light shifted and I discovered I had remained, somehow,  on my side of the road and the cars behind me must have suffered similar problems because everyone had slowed down. When I pulled into the driveway I said a prayer of gratitude for God guiding me through that scary ‘darkness of light’ and forcing me to fall back on blind faith…turning the situation over to the Only One who could intervene.

To finish…this last quote makes me smile and I hope it is true…just like the child in me wanted it to be in the reading nook with the dust motes. One day I will know.

“Ah, the souls of those that die, are but sunbeams lifted higher.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

So until tomorrow….

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Well…yesterday I didn’t go in the woods like Thoreau to live or find a path less traveled like Frost…I just wanted some quiet time in my garden sanctuary. I felt like finding a big, big blanket and wrapping it around all the foliage in the garden…tucking it in snug and tight…and wishing the garden a good long sleep this winter.

I have come to realize that my personal medical history and my winter garden..are closely interwoven. For almost twelve years…I have known that words like “dormant” or “stationary” “resting” or”inactive” are medical terms that describe a tumor that is in a form of remission and not spreading…at least extensively.

So these terms are “comfort” terms to me…like soup, or mashed potatoes or mac n’ cheese. I like to picture my tumor taking a nap…sometimes I even feel myself quieting my body down in fear of awakening it or jolting it back into activity. (Then later I forget about it and just go on about my regular life.)

Intuitively I know that the only “organ” in my body that I need concern myself with…is my soul. As long as it is okay (“All is right with my soul”) then everything else will fall into place… exactly when and how the Great Physician deems it so.

What was so strange about my winter walk through my garden was all the life peeping out under dead foliage or leaves…summer flowers, seasonal blooms, and the most beautiful sasquana season we have had in awhile.

“Snowing white sasquanas”

“Pretty in Pink”

Next year I am going to spend a little more money on year round azaleas (Encore azaleas)…they are worth every extra penny…they have bloomed all year.

Maybe because the flowers by the bird feeder outside my “office” window are protected…all the summer flowers have withstood several freezing nights and are still blooming.

So until tomorrow…As much as I love walking in my garden…if I could click my fingers and be at St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope right this minute…I know my soul would soar.

This summer marks the 10th anniversary of discovering this chapel…the catalyst that changed my life and started the blog post. A big shout-out to Mike and Honey Burrell for introducing me to this edifice of hope and love.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I love this written thought by Gunilla Norris…it makes me feel better about my “thinking” mess.

Create an image of a nest of papers on our desk as being a place where we can nurture new things…(like new life from a bird nest.)

*Sammy! 🙂

Dear Reader:

I know that I am one of those weird people who actually likes to pay the monthly bills…I just can’t help myself. I find such a deep satisfaction in paying my bills in full…while gleefully picturing the frustration on the faces of big companies who want to be able to charge interest for minimum payment customers.

Some of my bills are deducted from my bank account but I am one of those obsolete ‘hanger-on’ers” who really still likes to write checks. (The type of customers big companies roll their eyes at…because they probably have to keep extra staff help around to go through those checks each month. From my perspective I am saving jobs! 🙂

Yesterday morning Facebook took me back down memory lane to January of 2015…and I found myself staring at my ‘baby’ grandchildren…lost in reverie and wonder about where the time went.

I came across thoughts from Gunilla Norris…an author who looks for the spiritual in the ordinary rituals of everyday life…even simple chores around the house.

As I skimmed through samples from her book (Home: Discovering the Spiritual in the Everyday) what did I come across…but?

“Paying Bills”

“Here are the bills again.
I always dread them a little.
They are familiar presences:
first in the mail box, then in the bill drawer,
now on the desk. Services Rendered.
My life is dependent on services rendered.

“Somehow I am glad to pay Richard
for the plowing, Chic for the plumbing,
Walter for fixing the roof. I know them.
They make my life possible.

It is harder to pay the faceless ones
— the ones behind these white envelopes.
Here are the lives behind the heat,
the light, the telephone

— behind the counters and computers.
I want to learn to feel a friendliness toward them.
I want to acknowledge them.

“When I write my checks I want to feel
that I am returning energy in the form of money
for energy given in the form of service.
It is all Your energy. We are only each other’s way
to share in that great service which is Your life
poured out continually for us all without exception.

“Guard me against the arrogance of privilege,
against the indulgence of feeling
that I don’t have enough, and the poverty of spirit
that refuses to acknowledge what is
daily given me. Keep me truthful in knowing
where I spend, where my values actually are.

“Let me not skip this monthly knowing.
Instruct me in judicious spending
and in gratitude with no holds barred.
I want always to give thanks and acknowledgment
to the ones I know who help my life
and to the faceless ones whom I will never know.

This month my challenge was a six month car payment (which in SC is always a lot…apparently South Carolinians don’t know how to drive..we have one of the worse records for wrecks in the country)

In addition to that my American Express bill was really LARGE since this card is attached to gifts I order on PRIME Amazon for the grandchildren and other family/friends. (Cough, cough!)

But I was determined to pay them all off in full which left me a quite challenging (rather severely) limited number to make it through the month. I was about to talk myself out of paying everything in full…but then stopped myself.

“Becky, you have had a lot less than this when you were teaching with three other mouths to feed and you did it…don’t go soft on me ole’ gal…you can do this…and I am! By the end of the month I will be back on track…with Christmas paid off in full! My belated Christmas present to myself! 🙂

So until tomorrow…I loved these mundane observations Gunilla Norris made while finding a spiritual moment in each…

…While washing, the author prays, “Help me scrub my face free of its masks / so I can return to the true self you gave me.”

While looking at herself in the mirror, Norris hopes she will be able to mirror the will of the Holy One. While arranging flowers, her dialogue with the Creator turns to thoughts of how she and the flowers share the states of blooming and dying.

Taking out the trash reminds the author that waste is inescapable, and mending reveals that everything gets frayed over the course of time.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Haven’t we all been guilty of watching something on a talk show, or the news, or even hearing about something right in our own community that completely ‘unsettles’ us from our daily routine of complacency? Something that seems too far out of of a social more or even just plain moral acceptance to be dismissed easily?

Yet when we considered the situation, the first thing we thought was that such and such a government agency or law or statue should not be letting this happen. “Someone” needed to fix this…Now who in the world was in charge of this problem?…Who was guilty of not following up on such and such a  heart-breaking dilemma  that was completely unacceptable in anyone’s eyes? “Who, Who, Who?” 

We find ourselves desperately trying to find “someone” to point our fingers at…to blame for the lapse of judgment in an bad emotionally-charged situation.

“Out of the mouths of babes” come more solutions than we adults are even attempting to fix. It is so much easier finding a ‘scapegoat’ to blame, shaking our heads, sighing, using a political view  to hide behind rather than reacting to our consciences , and then promptly forgetting about it…as more problems fill in to distract us.

Time Magazine made a list of the extraordinary heroes of 2019 in the last issue-recognizing the movers and shakers, who not only reacted to a disquieting problem, but most importantly acted upon it.

They were all inspirational stories…I especially love children’s heroic exploits since they always come straight from the heart…right vs wrong with no gray area in between.

Nine-year-old Ryan Kyote was eating breakfast at home in Napa, Calif., when he saw the news: an Indiana school had taken a 6-year-old’s meal away from her when her lunch account didn’t have enough money. Humiliated and hungry the little girl broke into tears. Kyote asked his mother if that could happen to his friends?

(Ryan Kyote used his saved allowance to pay off his grade’s lunch-money debt- Courtesy Kylie Kirkpatrick)

When his mom contacted the school district to find out, she learned that students at schools in their district had, all told, as much as $25,000 in lunch debt.

Although the district says it never penalized students who owed, Kyote decided to use his saved allowance to pay off his grade’s debt, about $74—­becoming the face of a movement to end lunch-money debt.

When California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill in October that banned “lunch shaming,” or giving worse food to students with debt, he thanked Kyote for his “empathy and his courage” in raising awareness of the issue. “Heroes,” Kyote points out, “come in all ages.” —M. Carlisle

You might remember a few posts ago we were talking about  the new year 2020… within the context of hindsight and foresight. But we forgot one “sight.” In the book I am re-reading Garden Spells…the book is divided into three parts: Part 1: Hindsight Part 2: Insight Part 3: Foresight. We forgot the most important sight…”insight.”

As I read all the heroic stories of 2019 in TIME magazine…I realized the one quality or personal element that all these diversified heroes shared… was their gift of insight into a solution to a problem.

These heroes didn’t waste time looking for someone to blame for a problem…instead they used time to find a solution to a problem and persevered until they succeeded.

Anne sent me this funny 20/20 dog eye chart. The dog is identifying names of dogs from their “hind quarters” …hindsight readings. 🙂

So until tomorrow…in 2020 let’s all stop the search for “someone’s” to fix our problems and instead take the initiative to use our own insight into solving the problems around us….one problem at a time.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

One of the most popular posts over a long continuum has been the post I did on Whitmire’s Jewelry Store (Pawley’s Hammock Shops) and John Whitmire’s creation of the Pawley’s Island shell that he turned into beautiful silver and gold pendants, rings…and other designs.

Libby came across a group of local artisans from Pawleys Island that use their island’s distinctive shell to make creative works of art…like this Pawley’s Island Shell Christmas Tree.

Dear Reader:

At the funeral service, for fellow friend and educator, Ellen Styles yesterday afternoon… I think the visual quote above could have summed her life up completely. Ellen, was one of those people, whom you wanted to be around because she was a “nice person” who did “nice things“…continuously.

It was close to standing room only in our church sanctuary and the service and sermon became an intimate storytelling session…exactly what Ellen would have wished for…

Tommy was kept busy directing cars to the back of the church’s large parking lot…keeping the traffic flowing…while Kaitlyn sang “The Lord’s Prayer” so beautifully one could almost hear tear drops hitting the floor in the hushed tone of the church. She has so much God-given talent in her voice. And speaking of talent, Susan Cadwell, close friend of Ellen’s, had volunteered to play the organ…a family affair!

There was a mixture of backgrounds and careers at the memorial service… but a large majority were teachers, educators like Ellen. Teachers are a loyal group and show up after years of not seeing another teaching comrade…many coming from long distances.

Jeff’s sermon, based on adjectives (from family and friends) that described Ellen in conjunction with Jesus’ death…with the name “rabbi” or “teacher” playing a major role in the final death scene… brought back a personal memory to me… *my own loss of a sibling.

Other close childhood friends and teaching buddies shared hilarious and caring tales about their witty friend who “sucked more marrow out of the bone of life” than several  “average Joe’s” put together.”

*My younger brother David, was in the midst of student teaching his senior years at Erskine College when he became suddenly ill. It was March of 1973…a cold rainy night. (The campus doctor had thought it might be the flu when he went to see him the day before and sent him home over the weekend. David woke mother up in the middle of the night and said he had to go to the emergency room…he was having trouble breathing.)

So on that cold rainy night mother rushed him to the hospital (driving with her one hand) only to discover that the emergency room entrance was under new construction and closed…mother was in a panic! Finally she found an lit open entrance and a stretcher was brought to take David in.

A young first -year intern was on duty…he started getting some information from David and the last question he asked him (when David told him he was a senior at Erskine) was what he was going to be? David looked him straight in the eye…and said “A teacher!” He then keeled over and was gone…an aneurysm  of the heart…side effect of Marfan’s Syndrome Disease.

What happened next was even more remarkable…the first-year intern didn’t have the heart resuscitator to try to re-start his heart…in all the construction it was on the third floor. The intern was panicking…and sobbing…as mother held David on the floor.

But with her one good hand she grabbed his and said “Son…it’s okay he’s already gone…there is nothing you could have done.” The intern fell on the floor weeping and calling out for help. Within seconds the rest of the staff found mother holding her dead son in her lap while  consoling her other ‘son’ …The word “teacher” still lingering in the air and thoughts of mother and the intern.

It was the word Mary uttered when she finally realized Jesus was alive and back from the dead…”Rabbi...teacher.”

Last week when I sent a condolence  card to Ellen’s husband, Brooks, and family, I added this quote that touches me every time I read it…the impact of the truth of it never fails to open my eyes to the journey we are on…and not just on…but own. We are the journey!

So until tomorrow…“Safe travels Ellen…you are simply changing directions now and all you have to do is keep going.” The rest of us will catch up with you one day. *You’d better have a great joke ready! 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

As a South Carolina history teacher for three decades…I feel like Charleston is home to me in so many ways. And our state history always started with a little boat called The Carolina when it pulled into what is now Charleston Towne Landing in April of 1670.

**(Named  Charles Towne (Charleston) for King Charles II of England)

My first year living in Charleston was filled with wonderful memories. Brooke and I had each found teaching jobs in Summerville and roomed together in an apartment in Charleston… I remember the air force boys that lived in apartments next and adjacent to ours became great buddies with us…we went on lots of adventures together…including going to see a replica of the original boat that established Charleston’s settlement at Charles Towne Landing…The Carolina.

Old boyfriends and old memories…great fun living in Charleston that first teaching year!

At the time we went  in 1971/1972 (our first teaching years) to the amazing state park…the city was still celebrating the 300th anniversary (1970) of Charleston at Charles Towne Landing…My how time flies!

*Charles Towne Landing was actually completed just in time for the Tri-Centennial…so when we were visiting it…it was almost brand new.

Later when I took my own children to Charlestowne Landing…they were always more interested in the animal zoo adjacent to the historical sites…especially the bison.

Today many tourists forget about the original settlement and head straight to the Battery and the historic French headquarters in modern downtown Charleston where the settlement was relocated after ten years at Albermarle Point.

Charleston has been through a lot since its establishment in 1670: a pirate invasion, a trade boom, a handful of wars, a civil-rights movement – not to mention hurricanes and an earthquake. Nearly 350 years on, the waterfront city still looks like a set for a genteel period drama. But its five-square-mile downtown, lined with live oaks, landmark mansions, and pastel-colored Georgian townhomes, is more than just a beautiful time capsule.

Today Charleston cuisine attracts as many tourists to Charleston as the historical tours and lowcountry beauty of its marshes and rivers. Still the fame of local artists, gardens, water tours complement the whole Charleston experience.

During the next few weeks I will be sneaking in some more Charleston history…especially a lot of “firsts” that took place in our beautiful city…settled 100 years before the United States declared its independence from England.

Charleston reminds me of a feisty old lady who never reveals her age or secrets all at one time…she disperses her history in tiny increments…like making a strand of precious pearls for a necklace.

So until tomorrow…the story will continue to add layers upon layers of history …unveiling secretly planned surprises for an important birthday…to be filled with educational, musical, theatrical, and cultural events.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

I did it…oh how it saddens me to take down the Christmas decorations but I knew it was time. The top string of lights on the tree had gone out…the apple tree collapsed with bruised apples flying everywhere, two poinsettias lost their last leaves…Christmas was telling  me it was time to leave.

I don’t know if “I am back in the saddle” necessarily…but I was back in my recliner last evening with my lower back begging for more heating pads. I over-did it. But isn’t it hard to stop once you make the tough decision to put Christmas up and away for another year. I had two sides to put up plus the front porch.

Wonderful Luke came over and carried the tree out to the curb…I packed up everything neatly in its rightful bins to be ready next year.

I made a fire, turned down the lights and even with an aching back proudly looked around the room. The only thing I decided not to change was the mantle. The wreath has no red and green in it…just browns and greens and white…more of a winter wreath and the aluminum/wooden angels seem right at home on the mantle…I decided to keep it up through the winter before changing it out at spring.

With the tree gone….the rooms have returned to normalcy including the front porch.

In the garden, however…there is nothing normal about the diversity of summer, spring, and winter plants all blooming at the same time-azaleas, mums, and lovely camellias.(Even found one with a fairy on top!)

Look what was hidden under the stems on these mums…I cut back some of the stems…and behold…an unexpected glorious sight!

But isn’t that life…with change of seasons, including holiday seasons…new beauty and surprises await us…we just have to let go and open our eyes to the hidden beauty that awaits us …life is full of surprises in every season…even dead winter.

So until tomorrow…

*“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Yesterday I experienced something quite magical…due to the timing of the incident. Something good actually came out of my frantic search for the book To Bless This Space Between Us. I found (tucked away in the back of one of my book shelves) two of my all-time favorite stories by Sarah Addison Allen…her first big novel (Garden Spells) and then her sequel to it.

I love to live in Sarah Addison Allen’s world of “Southern fried magical realism”…in fact it is where I have spent most of my life. I feel like I have come home when I read her novels.

In Garden Spells and her sequel First Frost…we are introduced to the Waverly sisters who have all been given the gift of paranormal prophesy… resulting in hilarious outcomes.

Even their famous apple tree (located in the back yard) has its own strong personality and will throw apples at the characters…as a warning change is coming…but it never tells you for good or bad. (That must be deciphered by the character rubbing his head from the apple attack.)

Yesterday I had  just finished one line about the quivering apple tree building up energy to intercede on a personal note in the book when I heard a loud thump on the kitchen floor. One of the apples had rolled off the “Apple Tree” Honey made me…from the table to the floor.

It is definitely time to take it down until another Christmas…the apples have started to turn dark and ferment…but still it is such a lovely smell when one enters the Happy Room.

When I realized what had caused the noise I had to laugh…apparently something is getting ready to put a ‘spell’ on me…I hope it is a good one because there is a special power shown only to a few.

“Claire has an apple tree in her garden with a special power; anyone who eats an apple from it sees what the biggest event in their life will be.” (Do you see the gap in the tree…where the apple fell?)

*I can hardly wait to see if this event will appear to me in a dream…time will tell.

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I just have to share this funny but also shocking discovery Eva Cate and I shared Tuesday.

We went to TGIFriday for lunch and I told the waitress that we were in a slight hurry to make the 1:00 show. She told me she was on it and no problem. She was and it wasn’t a problem. I paid early, she brought the take-home boxes quickly to the table. Sweet high school student.

And then it happened…she asked what we were going to see and Eva Cate said excitedly “Little Women!” The waitress looked completely blank…so I filled her in by saying…”You know …the classic you have probably been required to read by now…by Louisa May Alcott? Still nothing…so I filled in the awkward silence by saying we needed to go and thanked her again.

Eva Cate looked at me…and whispered softly, “Boo Boo…I don’t think she knew what Little Women was…do you think she never read it or saw any of the other movies?” (This from a nine-year-old who initially struggled with reading????)

I just shook my head sadly and we started out the door. Another young woman, probably in her 20’s or early 30’s smiled at us and asked if we were having a grandmother-granddaughter day. Eva Cate nodded happily and then she said excitedly…”We are going to the movies to see Little Women!”

No gleam of recognition once again…but this time she filled in by saying “Oh …so you are meeting your little friends…your “little women” at the movies to see a show? “

Eva Cate inherited her grandmother’s “snort” when she loses it and out it came…it was all I could do to keep a straight face as I hurried Eva Cate out to the car where we collapsed in total laughter…neither of us believing these women had never heard of “Little Women.”

Maybe it isn’t considered important any more…but what a shame…to me a person who doesn’t know basic classics in literature is not considered an educated person. But then what do I know…when my grandchildren fix my computer for me? 🙂 🙂

Perhaps I should pick up a beginner’s book on the classics and send the restaurant a copy…sigh…it’s a new world out there.

“Little Big Red”s buds are popping out each day like kernels of popcorn…it gets more beautiful each morning when I check it and the mini-petunias are just out-doing themselves…even more so now than this past summer.

“All was calm” when I rode by Hutchinson Square…decorations were gone. I thought it was kind of strange the town didn’t wait until at least today…following New Years’ Day. It was still pretty…but did seem empty after the beautiful fairy lights and decorations.

Sammy stopped by to see me…again…but he has yet to eat from the cardinal shaped bird feeder….I keep taking photos of one particular bird that seems to have made it its home. Sammy prefers eating by my office window suet cage…and who am I to judge…I love watching him out my window.

Dear Reader:

This is a short post today because I just have one thought I would like to share with all of us starting a new year and a clean slate on life.

I accidentally came across this observation by John O’Donohue and it spoke to me.

Aren’t we all guilty of not turning dreams into reality for fear…fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of not being able to bring our dream alive …thus ending a life long yearning. And then where would that leave us…with just cluttered broken dreams for a life? Don’t we often ask ourselves…”Is it not better to ‘leave well enough alone?”

We all know the answer to that question deep down inside of each of us. We each have been given an unique gift from God and unless we are using it…we are not living our lives completely. We are short-changing our one precious journey we call life.

Here is the quote that made me stop and think about the importance of entering that unknown frontier we each must cross in order to find our true beings…who we were meant to be.

“May I have the courage today To live the life that I would love, To postpone my dream no longer But do at last what I came here for And waste my heart on fear no more.”

So until tomorrow…”One day…or DAY ONE…you decide.”

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

*OOPS! I almost forgot “Rabbit, rabbit” while concentrating on dreams in the New Year. So, even like me, if you are a little later saying it today…”No Problem…just get it in today before midnight“! 🙂

Courage takes energy and Anne invited me over for a “spontaneous” supper Monday night. We decided to start on the southern good luck kick-off meal early. A little extra luck never hurt anyone.

In fact Anne packed me a ‘goodie’ bag to save for New Year’s Day… so all the  bases are covered. On the way over to her house the skies gave me an unbelievable taste of the beauty of 2020 to come.

On the last day of 2019 I took Eva Cate (as a part of my Christmas present for her)…to see Little Women with Boo Boo. She has read the book and seen three earlier versions of it…she is a “Little Women” buff!

I can think of no better way to end the year …watching my granddaughter learn and absorb the most important life lesson of all- to continue to show up for life…even when our dreams are momentarily dashed. Victory always goes to those who persevere and deliberately make themselves vulnerable to all possibilities.

*Making memory days…girl time in 2019…hopefully more in 2020!

Happy New Year One and All! I hope only the best for each of you!

Dear Reader:

Before Anne left for Florida with family for the holidays she had made a connection that she thought I would have fun with as a post introducing the new year. She was right…a great early Christmas present.

I saved it purposefully for New Year’s Eve as we think about resolutions and dreams. Since we both love John O’Donohue’s prose she ended up finding the catalyst for the post in his book To Bless the Space Between Us.

Anne said as she reflected on the new year 2020…suddenly a little neuron threw out the old maxim “Hindsight is 20/20.”  She was hurrying to pack but she knew I would love to take this connection and expand upon it.

So being the old history teacher…I always want to know the origin and history behind an expression…in other words, the etymology of the expression.

Hindsight is 20/20. This is a saying which means that “It’s easy to know the right thing to do after something has happened, but it’s hard to predict the future.” Let me explain why this phrase has that meaning. First, “hindsight” means “thinking about things after they’ve happened”.

The expression was probably created sometime after 1862 when the Snellen Eye Chart developed the famous formula for identifying a person who has perfect vision… 20/20 according to the chart.

Don’t we always have better clarity when we look back on a dilemma or decision through 20/20 clear vision than trying to predict an outcome that hasn’t been resolved yet.

How many times have we caught ourselves lamenting over the fact that our foresight is much weaker than our hindsight and how we wish we could find a better balance on the scales between the two.

And now here we are….about to enter the year 2020… filled with hope and anticipation, feelings our foresight wants…but without the wisdom of experiencing it yet with hindsight. It is an age old human quandary with no easy answers.

But stop! Anne actually found some helpful tidbits in mastering more hindsight abilities in our daily living in the moments we live them.

*Before I share these with you…I must confess I get so excited about foresights….ideas evolving…that I forgot to complete the information available to me, on Anne’s email, before charging in with my own ideas.

Case-in-point:

Sunday night when I pulled Anne’s two week-old email with the 20/20 idea I excitedly saved it so yesterday morning I could readily pull it again. And I did…9:00 found me pulling the email and re-reading it…the only part missing was a list of ideas on how to use a daily “hindsight” check-off list each night to see how well we all lived our life that day.

I knew the source, the book and author, even the page…but Murphy’s Law kicked in and I couldn’t find my book copy I had here at the house. So I texted Anne and asked if she had the list somewhere that she could copy and send me.

In the meantime I had torn the book shelves apart hunting for John O’Donohue’s book and then googling trying to find that specific list…all to no avail.  Miraculously, however, I found it on my third or fourth on-line attempt, texted Anne back and told her I was good to go…no problem.

It was only then after I went back to the original email…that I discovered I had stopped reading it too soon…after Have a Merry Christmas- Anne. *If in fact, I had scrolled down two more spaces…she had sent the list the first time around.

Sigh: “Hindsight really is 20/20!” 🙂

I love this list O’Donohue created for us to use each day. We don’t have to try to do them all obviously every day but it is interesting to see how many or how few we actually do live or react to in an ordinary day.

*I hope these will make you pause and consider how your day was spent and if it can be improved. (*Mine sure can!)

Can you believe it is Eloise’s second birthday? Walsh reminded me that all their children have come on a ‘special day.’ Rutledge arrived on Father’s Day in June, Lachlan on St. Patrick’s Day in March and Eloise New Year’s Eve in a rare snowy/ ice storm in the lowcountry!

Because of the popular Eloise children book series, about the little girl who lives at The Plaza in NYC,  the Plaza gives “Eloise Birthday Parties” to little girls by the same name….Mollie said she hoped they could participate in one such affair while Eloise is still little one year.

Something to look forward to in the future…perhaps!

In the meantime Happy Birthday our little feisty southern two year old with your pearls. You have added so much fun and laughter to our family! Happy New Year Eve and Birth!

Guess what is brewing on 100 Rainbow Road? Little Big Red is about to burst wide open with its first bloom in a long time.

Jo sent me a New Year’s gift…several Charlie Brown life lessons…I love this one as I am saddened by the loss of a long-time teacher buddy and friend…Ellen Styles. A star in her own right…all her life! She is sorely missed by family and many many friends!