Exploring and Encouraging a Healthy Life Marked with Joy

Posts tagged ‘Children’

Five Friday Happy Bringers — 3/ 27/15

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It’s the LAST Friday in March.  Really!  Here are a few reasons I’m hunkering down with Happiness.  What about you?  Tell me!

1.  Enjoying a short visit with my parents up in Ball Ground (North Georgia) this week.  Dad’s 91, mom’s 87.  This September they will have been married 71 years!

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2.  Going down to Jacksonville’s Times-Union Center to see a theatrical production of I Love Lucy.

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Such fun!

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3.  Speaking of plays, watching grandson Gabriel in The Three Piggy Opera at Savannah Country Day School this morning.

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4.  Relishing the eerie beauty of Amelia Island fog last weekend.

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5.  Embracing the necessity and obligation of throwing away/letting go from time to time.

Small Boy

He picked up a pebble and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another. He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea. He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away, nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing he was practicing for the future

When there’ll be so many things he’ll want to throw away

If only his fingers will unclench and let them go.

— from The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Birlinn, 2009)

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But don’t throw away your joy this weekend!

 

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Five Friday Happy Bringers

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Danny Boy

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Probably my favorite Irish song of All Time is “Danny Boy.”  Listen to this little fellow sing it on “Britain’s Got Talent.”

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Holiday Joy

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Five Friday Happy Bringers — 3/6/15

Friday, Friday, it’s a cold one (in Savannah), but it’s here!  Here are Five of my Friday Happy Reasons.

1.  Trying to understand why I can snap pics like the one below of grandsons Gabriel and Daniel only when they don’t know I’m taking a photo …

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… because as soon as they realize what I’m doing, this behavior ensues:

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2.  Having no idea where they get such behavior.

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3.  In spite of today’s chilly temps, loving the signs of an early Savannah spring.

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4.  Always, always believing that Life Is Good.

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5.  Getting excited about Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day season.

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St Patty Day Info:  http://www.savannahga.gov/index.aspx?nid=1165

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May Genuine Joy be your portion this weekend.

 

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Five Friday Happy Bringers

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Sunday Morning Quote (2/22/15)

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“Making a decision to have a child–it’s momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

— Elizabeth Stone

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Sunday Morning Quote

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Five Friday Happy Bringers — 2/20/15

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1.  Trying to see some good in this cold spell in Savannah.

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Someone told me to be thankful because these temps will decrease the pesty gnat population come spring and summer.  But that aint doing me no good right now.

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2.  Warmer memories from last weekend, visiting Atlanta’s incredibly beautiful Oakland Cemetery.

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3.  Making sweet potato/bok choy bisque.  Yum!

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4.  Seemingly cute pic of grandson Daniel and grandtwin Matthew having a cuddly cousin moment, until you look closer and see that Daniel is really watching TV while pretending to smile at the camera.

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5.  Yellow roses.

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May joy warm you this weekend!

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Five Friday Happy Bringers

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Five Friday Happy Bringers — 1/9/15

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Here are five reasons why it is to me:

1.  Capturing sunsets.

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(Fernandina Beach, FL.)

2.  My ongoing love affair with yummy salads.

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(Spinach, arugula and Easter egg radishes, sprinkled with ground flaxseed.)

3.  Grandson Daniel’s drawing for his new voice lessons notebook.

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(That’s him singing into a microphone.)

4.  Pretty views from the car.

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5.  Picking up the grandtwins from nursery school.

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(Matthew and Madison.)

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Joyful weekend ahead!

 

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Five Friday Happy Bringers

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Have You Counted Your Holiday Blessings? (Part One)

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Have you done so this holiday?  Blessings come in SO many forms and dressings.  I urge you to take a sheet of paper and number your joys.  Here is a sampling of mine:

1.  I had to miss my seven year-old grandson Daniel’s first piano recital earlier this week.  (I was SO frustrated.)  Tonight at my family’s early Christmas dinner, I walked in the door and daughter Amy had arranged for Daniel to dress back up in his Calvin Klein suit and play Jingle Bells (as he did at the recital).  It melted my heart.

 

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(Okay, I’m not sure about the sunglasses either.)

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(Absolute grandfather joy.)

Here’s Daniel at the actual recital:

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2.  The ability to smell Christmas.

3.  Enjoying the power of silly.

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4.  Hosting a Holiday and Hot Toddy Chili Party Saturday night.

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What fun!

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Good buddies Ellie, Jamie and Brennan.

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I read “A Cup of Christmas Tea” to the twenty-something guests–and asked them to think about a person important in their upbringing to toast at the end of the story.  I urge you to do the same.  Who encouraged you along your way?

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“Let’s raise a cup of Christmas cheer, to family and loved ones far and near.”

So take a few moments, and with Bing, count your blessings:

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5.  Tree shadows on a wall during a walk the other night.

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What are a few of your Holiday Blessings?  Come on, share a few.

 

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Encouragement, Holiday Joy

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