Happy New Year Y'all!
Happy New Year Y'all!
I've been SO blessed this past year and want to give thanks to God, the Creator of all things, and to all those that helped make 2007 a success! If you are reading this now, you are most likely one of those to whom I want to give that thanks. A special thanks to the people at etsy for creating a website that enables artists and crafts-people to sell their work from their home. I wish my grandmother could have enjoyed such success with the lovely things she made. Her legacy to me is that she taught me many of those things. How to tat, and crochet, and sew a button.
2008 promises to be an even greater year, full of promise! I have made my list of the things I want to accomplish - a sort of resolution - but none of that "I want to lose weight or quit something or another" No, this year, I want to finish some of the projects I started, and build on new ideas, and dreams. In the book of Proverbs, chapter 13, verse 9, it says......."A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul." I've longed for my home to be a placed inspired by creativity, warmth and peaceful respite, full of yummy smells in the kitchen and lots of comfortable spots to curl up with a book. I long to spend time with my "self" and do just that in one or all of those spaces. Once they are finished..........
One of my new dear friends and customers from etsy writes for the paper in Kenmare, North Dakota. You can check out her news and her words at www.kenmarend.com
Here is a copy of her "fresh eyes" column.
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Fresh Eyes Column (Vol. 109 No. 52--12/26/07) Fresh Eyes Thanks for reading! Columns will be posted for two weeks, Too blessed to be stressed . . . Christmas celebrations continue and the New Year beckons, and that means it’s time for another resolution. I’ve been working on take a time-out all year with decent success and a better attitude for it, although my husband has asked what I’m doing a few times when it’s appeared to him I’m simply sitting in a chair. And that’s what I was doing, sitting to take a time-out rather than continuing with some frustrating task. I recommend the practice. Solutions to problems and challenges appear more easily and more logically sometimes if you can step away from them for a moment or two, or a half hour if necessary. As 2008 approaches, I’ve adopted a new resolution: too blessed to be stressed. This phrase came into my life from a Texas potter and tilemaker whose work, passion and attitude I truly admire. She creates her tiles around chosen words and phrases, and said her sister-in-law shared this thought a few years ago. These tiles have been some of her consistent bestsellers. She also sells her tiles at a coffee shop and Christian bookstore named Holy Grounds. I hope that business name makes you smile, too. I remember when the word "stress" and the notions of Type A and Type B personalities came into vogue about the time I was in high school. I believed I was beyond all that and could handle things just fine. Stress is one of those things that often creeps up on you, however. I didn’t recognize it until I recognized some of the classic symptoms of fatigue, binge eating, headaches and a short fuse (back to take a time-out) as characteristics of my life. Fortunately, I haven’t stressed myself to the point prescription medications are necessary, but I’ve tried plenty of the healthy diet-more exercise-more sleep tips and remedies through the years to remain functional. Then too blessed to be stressed showed up. Those five words held an answer. We often separate our spiritual side from our emotional and, especially, physical selves. The exception comes in times of catastrophic illness or accidents when prayer is a common response. Most of us live our daily lives, though, without wanting to bother God about them. Too blessed to be stressed is simply a change in perspective, like the half empty-half full perspectives of the pessimist and optimist. Sure, bills and deadlines come at inconvenient times, obligations pile up, plans and the weather change, our loved ones disappoint us, the unexpected occurs--and we rightfully say we are stressed. |
But how often do we step back to say we are blessed? And by doing so, can it balance and even mitigate the stress?
I’m going to find out this year. Too blessed to be stressed will be my focus in those times when life seems to close in on me. Maybe in the light of naming and counting my blessings, my "stressings" will dissolve--or at least become more diluted.
The thing about blessings is that one readily seems to lead to another--I’m finding that out as I go. And that’s what Rachel the tilemaker meant, too, when she told me this is "...one of those Pay It Forward phrases."
So how about your blessings for 2008? Just name a couple, right now, and you’ll start the New Year too blessed to be stressed.
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