Happy Birthday Cole!!

Cole had a birthday a week ago, and I was able to drive down to the valley and take him out for his favorite snack.  Anyone else like ice cream?  They are in love with Baskin Robbins currently, so we went there and had ice cream in cups to celebrate the big day.  

Happiness is life served up with a scoop of acceptance,  

a topping of tolerance and sprinkles of hope, 

although chocolate sprinkles also work. ~Robert Brault

Ice cream cravings are not to be taken lightly. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon

Unless your name ends in Baskin or Robbins, 

I really can't fit you into my schedule right now. ~Uniek Swain

Jake - I made it all by myself!

Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment--the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.--Jorge Luis Borges

Look What We Have Here!

"Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God." -- Thomas Jefferson

Why Oh Why Does Summer Have To End?

"Be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars." Henry Van Dyke

Oh, That Face

There is just something about watching children that appeals to me.  There faces are so honest.  They have a sense of wonder and enthusiasm that is simply captivating.  This is one of my grandchildren and she is quite the little character.  Her expressions say it all!

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.
Angela Schwindt

Linking up with Simple As That for her blog party of Simple Things.   

Jake the Snake

This is my grandson in his very first year of soccer!  I think he is amazing!

Macro Friday - Marigolds in my garden

We grew these in the garden this year, to help keep the pests out.  I have fallen in love with them.  They are big and bright and totally beautiful.  

“As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them.”  Henry Ward Beecher

Climbing a tree - Day 374

"Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys." 

Yellow Meadow - Day 373

I love looking out over a meadow and contemplating my life.  It seems as if the worries disappear, lost in a sea of yellow and green, and for a time, all is well with my world. 

“Landscapes have a language of their own, expressing the soul of the things, lofty or humble, which constitute them, from the mighty peaks to the smallest of the tiny flowers hidden in the meadow's grass” 

“It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.”  George Gissing

Tree in the Air - Day 372

"Do not be misled by what you see around you, or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, false values and false ideals. But you are not part of that world."  Sai Baba 

"A house must be built on solid foundations if it is to last. The same principle applies to man, otherwise he too will sink back into the soft ground and becomes swallowed up by the world of illusion."  Sai Baba 

Now That is a RED Rock! - Day 371

This is not photoshopped.  It is straight out of the camera, and as you can see, surrounded by white sandy ground.  I thought it was interesting to find it in the middle of everything normal.

Red is the ultimate cure for sadness. - Bill Blass

Twisted - Day 370

My husband found this old tree and loved the way it looked, so our family drove out to see it.  It is said that some trees grow twisted to protect themselves from the high winds.  By twisting, they make their trunks stronger and less likely to be broken.  I always find it interesting how nature works to protect each species.  

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Maya Angelou

"I've learned that no matter what happens or how bad it seems today, life does go on and it will be better tomorrow."

Maya Angelou

Hole In The Rock - Day 369

“Nobody says you must laugh, but a sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected, and smile through the day”  Ann Landers

"None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting a few months or a few years to change all the tenor of our lives.”  Kathleen Norris

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”  Henry David Thoreau

The Old Burn Area - Day 368

A lot of people get impatient with the pace of change.   

James Levine 

Meadow clothed in white - day 367

"White...is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black...God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white." -- G. K. Chesterton

"The first of all single colors is white ... We shall set down white for the representative of light, without which no color can be seen; yellow for the earth; green for water; blue for air; red for fire; and black for total darkness." -- Leonardo Da Vinci

Swimming in the Afternoon - Day 366

"Being your best is not so much about overcoming the barriers other people place in front of you as it is about overcoming the barriers we place in front of ourselves. It has nothing to do with how many times you win or lose. It has no relation to where you finish in a race or whether you break world records. But it does have everything to do with having the vision to dream, the courage to recover from adversity and the determination never to be shifted from your goals."  Kieren Perkins

Small Visitor - Day 365

It has been a full year since I started on this journey.  A year of learning and growth, a year of pleasure and difficulty.  I have enjoyed it, and think that I will keep going, for awhile anyway.  I am hoping to learn more, and get even better.  On this day, I found a small visitor that paused for a picture or two.  You have to look close, but he is there, waiting for you to notice.

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.William Penn

Life is not lost by dying;

life is lost minute by minute, 

day by dragging day, 

in all the thousand small uncaring ways.

 ~Stephen Vincent Benét~

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.Rodin

Silhouette - Day 364

I loved the look of this bare tree with the sky in the back ground.  The picture is just straight out of the camera, no flash.  It looks a little bit spooky.  

"Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness."-  Kahlil Gibran 

Lone Mountain Meadow - Day 363

"When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God that I am alive."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Be like the sun and meadow, which are not in the least concerned with the coming winter."

George Bernard Shaw

Wings - Day 362

Afflictions are but the shadows of God's wings. 

George MacDonald 

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: 

one is roots, the other is wings.

Hodding Carter

Isaiah 40:31 "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

This Old Dirt Road - Day 361

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, 

in which you can walk with love and reverence. 

Henry David Thoreau

Learning to Row - Day 360

You learn something every day if you pay attention. ~Ray LeBlond

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, 

as that every child should be given the wish to learn. ~John Lubbock

Grammy, don't go! - Day 359

Good-byes can be so hard when they are small.  You know that they are going to change and be someone completely different before you see them again. 

How lucky I am to have something

that makes saying goodbye so hard. 

 ~Carol Sobieski and Thomas Meehan, Annie

Smaller than I look! - Day 358

The more I look at this sweet baby, the more I am aware that she will be completely different when I see her again.  They grow up so very fast!

"What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself."  Mark Twain

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."  Khalil Gibran

Little Beauties - Day 357

I think it is amazing how you can find little bits of treasure all around, if you just open your eyes and really look.  I thought these were beautiful, even though they were totally tiny and surrounded by grass.  

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions -- the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimal of pleasurable and genial feeling.   Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As we become curators of our own contentment on the Simple Abundance path... we learn to savor the small with a grateful heart.  Sarah Ban Breathnach