My son Michael called about 25 minutes ago. His beautiful wife, Jenny, delivered their second daughter at 8:28 p.m. Central Daylight Time in Arkansas. The little one weighed seven pounds one ounce and was 19 inches long. Robbia Ray is her name, after many ladies in Jenny's family. (Robbia is a family name for the past 6 generations. They will call her "Ray.")
We'll see if this works! Here is our hotel in Costa Rica.
Here is part of the pool system. It meanders throughout the western side of the hotel, covered by footbridges and surrounded by tropical flowers and greenery. Lots of birds make their homes here, and bats flutter around in the evening.
Here is a shot of the bay from the beach near the hotel.
Here is a shot of Jaco Beach, which we visited on Friday.
Richard and I are in a small coastal town in Costa Rica. He won a trip here through his business association with one of the local TV stations. We arrived yesterday, and it's CONSIDERABLY warmer here than it was in Utah!
We're had a rather lazy day today. We didn't get to our hotel until midnight last night. The flights from Salt Lake City to Houston and from Houston to San Jose weren't bad at all. The bus trip from San Jose to here was NOT so good. Two hours driving on a winding, crooked two-lane road that seemed just barely wide enough for oncoming vehicles to get past our bus...a rather harrowing ordeal that didn't end nearly soon enough!
Today we slept in, then we enjoyed a breakfast buffet in one of the restaurants in the hotel. We wandered the grounds a bit, checked out the spa and the gift shop and the beautiful golf course. Then back to our room for a nap! There was a reception for all the members of the tour group this evening--a very casual affair, thankfully, that took place outside on the lawn of the hotel near the beach. The three couples sharing a table with us were very cordial.
Tomorrow we take the hotel shuttle to Jaco Beach (pronounced HAH-koh) and will enjoy the local shops, scenery and dining. Saturday we're on a zip-line excursion into the rainforest nearby. (Yep, you read that right--ZIP LINE! Richard's idea. It seems I married a "closet adventurer"!)
Pictures will be forthcoming, assuming I can download them onto this site and they aren't too big!
Pura vida! (A local saying, meaning literally "pure life," and colloquially "I'm doing well" or "I'm great!")
I've been reflecting this Christmas season about blessings. People often tend to get caught up in the busy-ness of this time of year and perhaps forget to think about the good things in their lives. I believe I've been guilty of that this year, and so I would like to remedy that situation.
I'm thankful for Richard and his love and kindness. Being married to him has been a joy. He even tolerates my cats! (What a man!)
I'm thankful for my children: Heather, Robert, Michael (and his sweet wife, Jenny), and Marissa. I'm thankful for a healthy granddaughter, DeAnna, who is now introducing her father (Michael) to the joys of having an almost-two-year-old. (Just wait till she ends up sitting on top of the refrigerator the way YOU did, Son!) I'm also grateful for the 2/3 baby, a little girl, that is due in March and appears to be healthy so far.
I'm thankful for Richard's children and grandchildren. For the most part, they have accepted me and my family with kindness and caring. They're delightful people, his kids and in-laws and their children, and I'm grateful to know them and be a part of their family.
I'm thankful to have a job that allows me to use the talents I've been given to educate, entertain, and enlighten other people...especially kids. It's very cool to get paid to do something I am passionate about--teaching music.
I'm grateful for the adversity I've experienced in my life and the things I've learned from such. (Yeah, I know, that sounds a little bit crazy, doesn't it? But without adversity, how could we learn and grow?) Just like a muscle that strengthens through opposition, so do our character and spirit strengthen through opposition.
I'm thankful for miracles--specifically, the miracle that came Monday evening. Marissa had flown into Salt Lake City for the holidays, and Heather had joined me to pick her up at the airport. After visiting for a time, Heather decided to travel back home...a journey of approximately 60 miles. A snowstorm had blanketed her hometown and the 30 miles or so north of her hometown. On the way home late that night, she hit a patch of black ice and did a 180 on the interstate, going 75, and the driver's rear bumper crunched into the barrier between northbound and southbound I-15. The car continued to spin another 180, finally stopping when she was facing south again. Her car was still running, and her heart was, too! She spun because she was trying to avoid a spin into a semi-tractor-trailer in the lane next to her. She avoided that collision, and when she arrived home she learned that her car had suffered virtually no damage!
THAT was a miracle. To hit a retaining wall at 75 miles per hour and suffer no significant physical or automotive damage?! Indeed, I am thankful for my Christmas miracle.
Merry Christmas to all, and may your New Year be joyous, prosperous, and better than you could even dream!
Today brought the first snowstorm of the winter! The storm moved in this morning about 7:30 or so, and by noon we had five inches of new, pristine snow in the yard. Lake-effect snow is still falling. The local weather folks predict another 4-8 inches of snow in the next 18 hours.
Our new kitty, Shadow, is an indoor/outdoor cat. Shadow wandered up into the yard near the end of May, emaciated and very cautious. I have no idea where he came from. Being the "cat person" I've been my entire life, I couldn't bear the sight of this beautiful animal's ribs protruding through his thick fur coat. I started putting food on the patio for him (with the approbation of my very tolerant husband). Within a day or two, this sweet, affectionate cat was insisting on being petted before he would eat. Within a few weeks, he convinced me to invite him in. My poor little British tortoiseshell kitty, Scherzo, approached him very nervously, but Shadow (as Richard and I dubbed him) never displayed any aggression towards her. He still maintains an indoor/outdoor lifestyle, but Scherzo has no inclination to go outside. She's been an indoor kitty her entire life, and being paranoid/schizophrenic she is much too afraid to venture outside the patio door.
Even with snow swirling in the brisk wind, Shadow insisted on being let outside after breakfast this morning. He made several trips out there in the snow, which is now deeper than his chest. Richard just came and told me that he let Shadow out just now, but the snow was so deep that our cat couldn't walk in the snow. He abruptly made a U-turn and hurried back into the warm house. He's a smart cat, too!
Last week I finished showing a film to my 3rd-6th grade classes entitled "Bach's Fight for Freedom." (Google it. It's a great film! Part of a series on composers.) The gist of the film was J.S. Bach's struggle for freedom to compose. In his day, a composer was more or less a puppet of their employer--usually royalty or a church. Throughout the film, Bach keeps reminding his young assistant to live life in passion. "People can only discourage you if you let them," he insists to the young Frederick. "Never despair!"
How many of us live our lives in passion? How many of us find at least one thing that truly gives us joy and then embrace it wholeheartedly? How many of us seek for whimsy every single day?
I know what it's like to be depressed. There was a time in my life when I suffered from a depression so deep and so dark that I thought I wouldn't survive it. Through the grace of a loving Heavenly Father who blessed me with people I needed in those moments, I pulled through.
I struggled through a short-lived marriage to a man with severe emotional and mental disorders. While working with a wonderful counselor who knew my then-husband, I learned the value of self, and the value of serving others, and the value of searching for joy in every circumstance of our lives. Now I'm blessed with a wonderful husband who is more than I ever hoped to find.
I worked in a law firm for a year, and I hated every minute of it. But I was determined that those 15 lawyers and 50+ support staff were NOT going to diminish my spirit or dampen my love for life. I found ways to bring whimsy into the stuffiest of work environments. (It's amazing how a basket of jelly beans can bring a smile to an attorney's face!)
When I accepted a job with a school district in Florida as a music teacher, I truly found my passion. Now I actually get paid for teaching music to 730+ students, grades 1-6, every week! (What a great gig!)
All of us have stories--some worse, some better. The point isn't the comparison. The point is recognizing the beauty around you, the joy even in hard times, the blessings that we've been given--no matter how small. Is it easy? Not always, no. Sometimes it's extremely challenging to find our passion. Sometimes, after we discover it, it's a struggle to make it happen in our lives. All of us have obstacles to overcome. But if we determine that we are going to find the thing(s) in our lives that bring us joy, and we set our minds and efforts to do just that, we CAN do it!
Look around you and recognize the wonders of your world. A baby's smile, a cat's purr, a dog's look of adoration, the presence of a friend, the touch of a loved one's hand...even something so simple as a butterfly fluttering around a bush. EVERY SINGLE DAY brings something of joy, if we allow ourselves to seek it and recognize it.
Richard and I live in a fairly new neighborhood. He told me to expect LOTS of trick-or-treaters tonight. So, I bought two large bags of Halloween candy and a cute little orange candy bowl. I filled the bowl up with all of that candy--and sampled a few pieces, for quality assurance purposes, of course--and placed it on the chair next to the front door. I flipped my front porch light on and waited with great anticipation for the revelers to arrive.
The hordes came! An hour later, the candy was gone, except for four pieces of sour candy (which I happen to love!).
Of course, every time the doorbell rang, I had to sample the candy...just to make sure it was still palatable, mind you.
The Tootsie Rolls were perfect. (Of course, they were chocolate, so what did I expect?)
The Double Bubble bubble gum was soooooo nice and soft. I enjoyed both pieces sampled through the hour.
The lollipops, while difficult to unwrap, tasted so fruity! Even that gross-looking yellow one sure was good.
The Now-Or-Laters were soft and chewy...all four flavors that I sampled. Just to make certain that none of them had gone stale (since I bought the candy five long days ago), I had to taste several samples of each flavor--grape, strawberry, cherry, and (my favorite) green apple. They were, each and every one, PERFECT!
Hmmmm...maybe I just came up with a new diet! The "Halloween Diet." It's simple, really. You just sample a minimum of FOUR of every single type of candy that you make available for the local witches and ghouls. Of course, a wise dieter assures himself/herself that there are at least 10 different types of candy, just so one doesn't burn out on a particular flavor. After all, diet burnout is one of the most common reasons that diets fail, right?
My friend Moontan has blogged a bit over on his page about the whole "pro-choice" thing in this election. I received an email today that horrified me. It had a link to an article about Obama and his voting records and viewpoints on abortion. Due to copyright laws, I can't print the entire article. But go here to read it.
Here are some questions for those who see no problem with destroying unborn children:
1) For those of you who are avid advocates of women's rights-- If the majority of aborted fetuses were female, would you not consider their destruction an assault against females?
2) For those who are avid advocates of specific ethnic rights-- If the majority of aborted fetuses were black, or Hispanic, or Asian, (whatever your ethnicity may be), would you not consider their destruction to be racial discrimination?
3) For those who are avid advocates of the poor-- If the majority of aborted fetuses were from women who were below the poverty line, would you not consider their destruction an assault upon the "economically disadvantaged"?
Those questions don't have anything to do with politics, folks. They concern the destruction of POTENTIAL.
You don't want to get pregnant? You have choices: use contraceptives, or don't have sex. Human beings are not animals that must copulate at every given opportunity with no regard to the consequences. But whatever you choose, there ARE consequences. Pregnancy is a consequence. (Let's not get into the whole discussion about rape or incest. They constitute less than 5% of abortions, and most people know that.) You don't want a child, but you're pregnant? Well, there are THOUSANDS of people in this country alone who spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to have a baby. CARRY your baby, and then unselfishly give your child to someone who wants it and will love it and take care of it. Abortion is about SELFISHNESS.
I've been struggling with some very personal issues lately dealing with forgiveness. In the process of doing some research and self-examination, I've learned a few things:
1) Hate and love cannot coexist in the same heart; 2) The person who doesn't ask for forgiveness is very difficult to forgive; 3) Forgiveness isn't an event...it's a process; 4) Even when we think we've forgiven someone, a small thing can bring an onslaught of the old hurt and pain and anger. Kind of like a hurricane; 5) It's easier to forgive a stranger than someone you love--or USED to love; 6) Forgiving someone who is still causing the pain is the most difficult forgiveness of all; and 7) Forgiveness isn't for the offender. Forgiveness is for the benefit of the offended.
Saturday (the 20th) was Heather's birthday. On Friday night, I took her to a concert by George Winston. For those who may not know, George Winston is a quiet, unassuming man who is an incredibly talented jazz pianist. Until Friday night, I didn't know he also plays guitar and harmonica very well! He played some beautiful pieces, some of which we had both heard before and some which we had not. The program included "Rain" and "Woods" from some of his previous CD's. He also played some very good "stride" piano (if you aren't sure what "stride" piano is, look it up on YouTube). I was soooo hoping he would play his version of "Walking in the Air," a piece written for the animated movie "The Snowman." My friend RW shared this version of the song with me some time ago, and I just love how Winston plays it. Unfortunately, he didn't. (*sigh*) But he DID include his version of Pachelbel's "Canon in D." (I think he played it in C major, though.) Take a look...
(And just because I love the song so much, here's the Celtic Women version of "Walking in the Air." What a beautiful voice!)
WIDGETIZE