Wednesday, November 24, 2010

~Bountiful Blessings To You~

To each and every one of you that has contacted me by email, letter etc. I thank you. Please know that I am truly touched by your words. And I am grateful to have you all in my life.

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. May we count our blessings and live each moment of life to the fullest.

Here are a few of my favorite gratitude quotes.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.  ~Melody Beattie

As each day comes to us refreshed and anew, so does my gratitude renew itself daily.  The breaking of the sun over the horizon is my grateful heart dawning upon a blessed world.  ~Terri Guillemets

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. ~Buddha

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.  ~Meister Eckhart

give us this day

Be blessed and travel safe.

Until next time, take care.

~Sarah~

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

~Being Ever So Grateful ~ What Truly Matters? ~ Making Changes~

Hello my dear friends. It has been a while. My last post was about my husband’s leg injury. Thank you all for the kind emails checking up on him! He is feeling MUCH better! Thank goodness.

ALOT has happened since my last post. As some of you already know, my daughter and I were in a car accident. We were hit by a Durango that ran a red light (going 45-50 mph). The Durango hit on my side, we spun around causing a van to hit my daughter’s passenger side door. We were both wearing our seatbelts, as we always do. The Durango went on to hit a semi truck stopped at the red light. So it was to say the least, a four vehicle nightmare. My daughter and I were taken by ambulance to the hospital. I had a baseball sized contusion on my forehead from hitting my drivers  window and my daughter had abdominal pain from the seatbelt. We were both given CAT scans that by the grace of God were clear. And within a couple hours we were free to go home.

This was what my face/eyes looked like a few days after the accident~

My Face 11-5-10

Being Ever So Grateful that the heaviest impact was on my side of the vehicle. I would be beside myself if my daughter had been injured more severely. All I cared about that day was her, how she was doing physically and mentally and keeping her calm was my only goal. We had angels with us, We were told that we were lucky to have been in a Suburban instead of a car and we were SO very lucky that the Durango missed my drivers side door. A matter of seconds could have made a major difference.

For those of you who knew about the accident, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your sweet messages of prayer, care and concern. They mean the world to me and to Emily. Slowly but surely we are both getting better and better everyday. The bumps and bruises will heal with time.

On to the next portion of my post. What truly matters? For those of you that have sent me emails asking about my All Roads Lead Home Facebook page being gone. I hope I can answer your questions.

Yes, I have closed my All Roads Lead Home Facebook page. The car accident has caused me to do a lot of thinking. Since then, I have been trying to put life into perspective, what really matters to me and what and more importantly WHO is closest to my heart. The time that I spend on the computer is time away from my children and my husband.

This also takes time away from our home, which includes time for and actually enjoying decorating our home. And more time for the not so fun chores like cleaning, laundry etc. My house suffers some days because of the time that I spend on my laptop. Instead of reading about everyone else’s home improvement projects, cleaning and organizing ideas. It is time for me to do some of these things in our own home. We have things that NEED to be done to our home and we have just not made the time to do them. Or I have not put them at the top of our “to do” list.

The other thing that I have not made time for lately is my Yoga and my workouts. These are also two things that are VERY important to me. Obviously right now while I am healing I will not be able to jump right back into it, but when my body says I am ready I will be dedicating myself to my health and well being. It needs to be a priority.

I have been thinking of this for a long time, even before the accident. Some of my close prim friends know that the past several months have not been easy for me. I also see this as a way to break away and move on. It really is the best decision for me.

On a side note, I won’t be selling my bowl fillers for the holidays. Time has gotten away from me, and I am not physically able to get them rolled, baked, painted, sanded, stained, dipped etc. before Christmas. And trying to get them done would only add to the usual hustle, bustle and stress of the holidays. And I just don’t want to do that to myself or my family.

Thank you to everyone that ordered my Fall and Halloween bowl fillers. You were all so sweet to place orders and so sweet to let me know that they arrived and some of you even sent me photos of them in your homes. That brings joy to my heart!

For now, I will continue with my blog, and post when I am able. I do enjoy it so much and it is something that I can do at my leisure when I have something to share.

It is unfortunate that it has come to this; there are other reasons that have caused me to make the decision to close my ARLH Facebook page. Those reasons I will keep to myself, because I am and always will remain professional about these matters.

To my closest prim friends, I hope we can remain in touch via email and through my blog. Know that I appreciate and hold your friendships very close to my heart. My hope is that you can all understand my reasons for doing what I am doing. I must follow my heart and stay true to what I believe in. And I truly believe this is the right thing.

The third part of my post Making Changes.

I know that recent events  in my life have caused me to make changes and set priorities. I think it is important that we don’t wait until something happens that could change you and your families lives in an instant to make these changes.

I don’t feel that I am negative person, I like to think that I am usually pretty positive. As with my blog, I tried to make my ARLH Facebook page a place of "sunshine", inspiring quotes, pleasant photos etc. As I would read through some other people's Facebook status's they would state how they "hate the world" or "they hate their job or maybe they dislike their mother-in-law" or that they woke up with their "third headache of the week". I began to think, is this really what I want to read daily and how I want to spend my time? I just hope that I can begin to use the extra time I will gain for a more productive and positive purpose.

I know that everyone’s situations are different, I am not here to judge. But please try to find the good in your day. Please try to be kinder and think before you speak or type. You get what you give and why not give away good and get good back! :)  Everybody has down days, but there are people out there that are suffering far more than we are. The troops that are protecting our freedom don’t have  the “luxury” to update their Facebook status and tell  “Monday to go away and come back another day”. Are Mondays really all that bad?

Post a positive quote or statement on your Facebook and watch the responses and the “likes”. It feels good to spread good! :)

I hope you have all stuck with me through this long, wordy post. I usually like to keep my posts simple, lighthearted and pleasant. I like my blog to be a happy place to visit. But sometimes you just have to take care of business. Next time I will post about something FUN I promise!

“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

Take time to salute our Veterans today and the brave sacrifices they made for all of us.

Until next time, take care and be blessed.

~Sarah~