It Takes Work to Make Blooms

This is the fourth post in the 31 day series, "Bloom Where You're Planted" and let me say, this takes work!

It's hard to post every day.  It's hard for me to even remember to post every day. 

I am the woman set a daily alarm to remind me to pick up my 4th grader.  Seriously, I am scared to death that I am going to be late to get my boy.  Sure, I would remember eventually...what was I saying?

We are trying to think big, learn the layout of this town and find what our kids call our "long-time" house.

There are boxes to unpack, totally new routines and unexpected expenses.

My temper is often short and there is much hard work.

If you want beautiful blooms and good roots, you have to do the work.  You have to do the work when the earth is still rocky and barren and maybe you can't see anything good.

At least not yet.

Seedlings start small and they are fragile and tough at the same time.  You have to protect seedlings from frost but even tiny plants can grow through concrete.  I choose to keep sowing.

The rules of the harvest say you reap what you sow, you reap later than you sow, and you reap more than you sow.

I will keep sowing.

Roots

This is the third post in the 31 day series "Bloom Where You're Planted" for the month-long blog party at The Nesting Place.  After a cross-country move back to the place where I was raised, this is a time to focus on living completely present in each day.  For you and me, it's the perfect time to stop wishing for what might be and live fully right where, and when, we are at this moment.

I have it easy I think.

My move was back home.  Back to my roots.

I am soaking it up.  Soaking up familiar restaurants, the same old streets, friends that I have known for 31 years and their grown children and grandchildren.  Grandchildren!

Back to my roots. 

Fed by my roots.

Knowing family in new ways-we are all 12 years older now-but loving the familiar sound of their voices, their senses of humor and our shared memories.

Even the land feeds me.  I love the way everything seems to be moving in the Oklahoma wind.  I love knowing instinctively which direction I am going even when I don't know where I am going.  I love the big airy sky open for all to see and the miles and miles of land.  Feels like I can finally take a deep breath.

I love that my kids and husband are seeing me in a way that they never have before.

Never realized that my own roots could feed me this way.  It makes me happy to plant a whole new life here. 

It will take hard work and constant tending to start again in a new place.  I am planning on a good harvest. 

michele

The other posts in this series...
Bloom Where You're Planted
Blooms Start With Buds

Feel free to subscribe by email or if you find it easier (like I do) just like the community page on Facebook at:  Traveler In My Own Backyard

Blooms Start with Buds

The Nester challenged us to write for 31 days on one topic.  I don't have it in me so I've asked for divine help and I am Giving Up On Perfect so there won't be any pictures of my actual "bud" in this post.  However, the commitment is made and I am showing up where I am supposed to be!



Change is good sometimes and in truth, I love change.

However.

When your whole basket of life gets thrown up in the air, you struggle to catch it all and it seems like most of it lands in different places than before.  Well, that can be a little hard on a girl.

We moved. Again. My husband and I gave our word to each other.  One more move before the old folks' home.  I mean it.  When we arrived I found myself closed right down.  I didn't want to unpack or put my things in another cabinet that didn't belong to me.  I didn't want to spend another dollar on a house that wasn't mine.  As far as moving goes, I was done before I got here.

Then my kid unpacked the bird feeder.  He was happy with this find, you know the cheap plastic kind with a green roof.

The front window is really big and as we sat in front of it looking out and doing school, we saw a perfect view of a bird feeder.  If we hung one up, that is.  So I found my shepherd's hook and got my purple flip flops dirty when I pushed it into the thick clay.

The grocery around the corner had bird seed.  A smallish bag with no commitment suited me perfectly.

Wouldn't you know it?  There were mums by the front door of the store.  Big, beautiful mums of that unusual orange color.  That bird lovin' boy likes orange right now.

The kids and I marched out with great ceremony and set our stage, hook, bird feeder, seeds and orange mums in a terra cotta pot borrowed from the rented garage.

A bud, all balled up and tight loosens a little.  The first of the fall.  It's a tiny orange mum.  In case you're wondering.



Other posts you might like:
Bloom Where You're Planted
Superman's Secret Identity Revealed
and the big reveal...
The post where I secretly talk about maybe moving to Oklahoma but I can't tell anyone yet.

Bloom Where You're Planted

"Bloom where you're planted."  

Mary Engelbreit

Maybe I have the heart of a nomad.

I moved 13 times that I can remember--before I was 23 years old.  Maybe I am just not afraid to move.

Maybe I know that this world is temporary and so it's hard to feel at home anywhere.

Less than a month ago, my husband and I moved our family 1,280 miles to be near my family.  That wonderful man changed jobs, gave up some retirement, and spent quite a bit of money to bring me back home.

I lived in North Carolina for almost 13 years and now I'm back home in Oklahoma.

I wasted alot of time in North Carolina hoping for a possibility and wasting some of that present.

God forgive me.

Forgive me for squandering a million little gifts.  Beautiful days at the beach or in the cool of the mountains, mild winters and wisteria vines that covered acres of trees like a big, purple net.  Pine trees everywhere and tangy barbecue sauce that soaked into pulled pork leaving only red pepper and a tangy bite that goes perfectly with cole slaw.  Kudzu.  People, this Oklahoma girl had never seen anything like that before, vines like great, green ghosts covering entire miles.

Forgive me, too, for complaining when I finally got what I wanted.  Complaint is a dangerous thing.

Though I have been transplanted and though we are still in the throes of adaptation, I am making a choice.

I will bloom where I am planted.  This time I will bloom.

I will not compare the two lives I have lived.  I will miss old friends and continue to love them and I will leave this house and make more friends.  I will not get  my feelings hurt because I will choose to love here.

I will look for beautiful blooms that I haven't seen in 13 years.

I will make a life right here.

There are many beautiful things blooming already.  

One kid is at home at the local elementary school.  He is blooming.  This neighborhood just feels good.  The time I have had with family is precious, so is knowing it is not limited by miles anymore.  Old friends have come out of nowhere to help us.   I soak these things right up, and I bloom.

Who would have thought blooms came in the form of Braum's brownie fudge sundae and sweet barbecue beef brisket?  The constant breeze that is sometimes a hot wind and how everyone has a fenced yard because everyone seems to have a dog.  All the wonderful geographical names that come from the Native American language and make me smile because as yet I am the only one in my family that can pronounce them correctly.

My children will really know my family.  That may be the sweetest bloom of all.

The weight of what my husband did for me still surrounds me all heavy at times.  It is as powerful as the summer sun and I bloom.

It feels good to have roots in the dirt.  It feels good to bloom.

m

This post is the first in a month-long series where I get to go visit over at The Nesting Place.  This is quite an endeavor, a post every day for 31 days, but it is good to do hard things, right?  These posts, Bloom Where You're Planted, will be in the Inspiration & Faith category.  I am sure you will find lots of goodies there, enjoy!

Take the City

Sometimes you just want something.  Call it a goal, dream, need or whatever.  Doesn't really matter. Sometimes the thing you want is the right thing. Sometimes it isn't.

Sometimes you don't really know.

In older times, kings sometimes wanted whole cities.

Maybe sometimes you judge the rightness or wrongness of your dream by how easily it comes.  You know what I mean, if you are meant for it, it will happen.  Doors will open.

If you aren't meant for the path to your dream, doors will close.  There will be obstacles.  Maybe that means you just aren't meant to be--just aren't meant to have--just aren't meant to do--that.

I judge my dreams that way, but I think I might be wrong.

I think that stuff I just said about doors opening or closing, I think sometimes those ideas are trash.  Garbage.

Sometimes you have to work really hard for the things you want.  You have to get over obstacles and open doors yourself.  You may have to do these things when you are exhausted and unsure.  You may have to do these things when no one else understands why you do them.

In older times, kings took the cities they wanted by fighting.

The things worth having do not usually walk up and offer themselves to you.  You must take action.  You must do something.

Doors do not open by themselves.

You open them with prayer and endurance and elbow grease.

My friend, my self, what do you do when the door is stuck?  Do you stay outside?  No.  You find a way to get where you want to be.

In older times, sometimes kings took cities by starving out the people they did not want.

Sometimes you must sacrifice something else.  You cannot be all things to all things.  Maybe you have to starve something out to make room for what is important.  Things do not starve quickly, but if you do not feed it, the unwanted thing will eventually go.

In older times, cities did not usually open their doors and allow themselves to be taken.  At least not without divine intervention.

Sometimes there is divine intervention.  We can't discount doors that fly wide open or obstacles that remove themselves.  Say thanks and move forward.

Sometimes the absence of divine intervention is divine.  Maybe fighting the battle brings the reward of becoming a conqueror.  Maybe you will love your city well because of the battle you fought for her.

Sometimes the thing you want is the right thing.

Sometimes you don't really know.

There is only one way to find out.

Take the city.





On a less serious note:
Gifts from Cape Hatteras
My Name is Butmommy...
King Robert of the Wild Hair

small time

Taking a five-minute party break with Lisa Jo Baker this Friday.  Want to know more?  Check it out at: Five-Miinute-Friday.  It's Lisa Jo's party and she gets to pick.  Today she inspires us to write about one thing: small.  It amazes me how folks can interpret one word so many ways.  Click around at Lisa Jo's page and read what other people wrote. As for me, here, have a small piece of my heart.

Small time girl, grown up to be a small time woman.  I'm good with that.  Don't want attention, really, just can't quit talking here on this page.  Enjoying the idea that there are other women out there like little ol' me.

Small town girl, going from one small town to another.  Love livin' where you don't need a cell phone to find somebody.  There are only three places to go.  If your friend isn't home, she's at the grocery or Sonic.  Check your watch and take a guess...Sonic has a happy hour at 2PM.

Small hearts, can they grow big?  Sometimes it doesn't feel like it.  I fuss small words in a big voice and I wonder how my heart got so hard.  Dr. Seuss says the heart of the grinch grew two sizes one day and we all know the wisdom of Dr. Seuss.  Maybe there is at least small hope for me.

Small days, trapping me here in this home.  Trapping me here until I remember what I believe, that this is no small thing that I do, mothering these kids and loving this man and building this home with the hands of my soul.  Big, beautiful, small days.

Small gifts.  Little boxes with big things inside.  Small gifts might just be the best gifts of all.

loving the small,
m

More?
Blessedly Ordinary
More from Five-Minute-Friday: Fall
For your friends, "I Wanna Be Like You"

Gifts from Cape Hatteras

Last summer our family went on a vacation.  It was a miracle.  We almost never go on vacation.  We saved and we planned and we went and it was beautiful.  

Now, during this summer of craziness and stuck inside, we pack and a child heals and we save and we plan, and I return to those pictures and those memories.  I reopen the gifts of Cape Hatteras.

The Gifts:

Relax.  Just sit.  Soak up the good feelings when they come.  Just sit and be empty and be full, both at the same time.

Say "Why not?" way more often than you say, "Why?"

Creation is really, really awesome.  Creation is not tame or safe but it is in-your-soul-beautiful.

Squirrels can crawl under the edges of mosquito tents and eat your bread. They like butter cake but not caramel frosting.  Just thought you should know.

Run and play and don't care how you look.  Floppy hat, floppy shoes, floppy butt, nobody cares just run and play.

Making really fabulous memories doesn't have to cost a bunch of money.  We tent camped on Hatteras Island, which is almost 30 miles out into the Atlantic and only a few feet above sea level. We were sort of perched out in the ocean in a tent and the wonder of being in it all was thrown in for free!

Don't be surprised when the rain comes.  You don't have to be afraid, just get in a tent if you can and plug the leaks with whatever you have.  Find a bright side in the situation, like eating the s'mores supplies even though it isn't perfect.

Don't let it ruin your trip if a crab bites your heel.  However, if he is edible, eat him.  That's what he gets for not being properly subdued by mankind.

Life doesn't have to be perfect.  Don't miss out because you are waiting for everything to be just the way you planned.  You will make the others in your circle miserable but you won't make perfection.

There are times when your hair (or whatever) just doesn't matter at all.  Let it go.

Respect the sun.

Take the best part.  Give up on having everything and just take the best part.

People are nicer than you think and people really do need people.  Real people, in person, to eat ice cream with and tell stories with and ride boats with and it doesn't hurt at all to be friendly.

You never know which little wave is going to move something really big.  Most of the really big stuff starts with one little action.  Islands shift one little wave at a time.

Be grateful when you get to see one of THOSE moments.  My son, Nathan, was afraid of the water.  He was sitting on a boogie board on the wet sand and a big wave came.  Those inches of water picked him up AND HE RODE several feet.  I saw it in his eyes.  That wave washed away fear and replaced it with potential and we had to drag that boy away from that beach.  He asked for swimming lessons last fall and I am pretty sure he has grown gills.  I watched that moment.

You have to be watching to see those moments.


Thank you Cape Hatteras, we are grateful for your gifts,
m

Other posts you might like:
More about Nathan...
When ordinary is a gift...
Our adventure at Tough Mudder