The 365 day Adventure into Gratitude: Day 29

"A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky." Kenko Yoshida

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I've been struggling the last few days. I wish I could say there was a valid reason but there's not. It's nothing more than menopause and bi-polar screwing with my life yet again. I've been trying to maintain some sort of balance by clinging to hope and practicing the skills and tools I've developed over the last few years. I'm writing it out in my blog, I'm pausing before going into the house, I'm exercising and I'm grateful. I think I've behaved OK, but you'd have to ask the man and the Pixie to be sure. I have not always been graceful about it, but hey, I'm trying. Yesterday I felt the storm ease up a bit. The day was OK but the night was great. A visit from Kelly, extra furniture removed, SPACE revealed, and Wall-E on blueray. Nice that.

Today? Well today has been a series of what my mother calls "God Winks" little blessings from God that says "I see you". Some call them coincidences but really, these little oddities are so specific, even I can't miss the signs. Today, there have been several, the first of which was a rainbow that arced directly over my back yard. OK, not directly, but very freakin close. I was just walking out to my car to go to work and noticed an odd reflection off behind the houses across the street. As I'm walking to my car, my back to the rising sun and into a stormy sky. Behind me is due East, and a bright and brilliant sunrise. The effect of the rising sun hitting the stormy sky was striking and I realized what I was looking at was easily, the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen. Honestly, like something off of an Ireland postcard.

I'm a HUGE sky freak. I'd rather stand in my front yard and photograph the sky than stand anyplace in the world photographing anything other than my kids. So, I run back into my house to grab my rig and scream for the Pixie. After all, you can imagine how Pixies love rainbows. Now, it takes some time to set up for a shot. At least with a rig like mine. It's rather old and temperamental and needs extra care. I'm rushing to set this all up as I see the rainbow fading. NOOOOOOO! Wait for me!!! I go to take my first shot and nothing happens. Crap! No memory card! By the time I'm finally ready to shoot, it's nearly gone. I get 3 or 4 shots off just in time for it to completely disappear.

Disappointed but feeling blessed by such a wink I figure, since I've got the rig set up, may as well get some sunrise shots. The combination of a brilliant warm sun and dark grey storm clouds really made for a startling sky. I shoot for several minutes and then decide I better get my butt to work. I turn back around to take the rig into the house and I bet you can guess what I see. Yup, it's ba'ak. As I'm standing there looking up, mouth agape, I see it darkening before my eyes. It never did get back to the brilliance of our first viewing, but it darkened up enough for me to get some nice shots. Yeah, that was my first God wink of the day. I know full well that others saw and enjoyed that amazing rainbow as much as I did, I'm also equally as sure it was meant for me.

I've been receiving little "love you" notes from the universe all day. My mom called me as I was driving to work. She NEVER calls that early. It was nice to be able to just chat uninterrupted. Traffic was nice to me. Not ONE idiot deserving my "special" hand gesture. The phones in the office are dead, allowing me the luxury of actually THINKING today. Oh, and we put our down payment on paradise. Oh, AND the new jeans I just bought are a bit loose. Oh, and the scale is going in the right direction once more. So you see, all day I've been getting little signs that the universe has forgiven me my latest infractions. While I'm not back in balance and I'm certainly not back in the happy bubble, but I have shifted further to the left and I'm feeling rather loved.

Today I'm grateful for:

God winks. They've added another layer of beauty to the hope butterfly.

uninterrupted Mom calls.

forgiveness. It seems both God and the Universe has forgiven me my bad attitude over the last 3 days. I am thoroughly undeserving and exceedingly grateful.

quite phones. I know it means little business but it's been brutal all week. The piles on my desk aggravating my OCD does nothing to help calm the storm within. I've been jumping around like a Starbucks employee who's been siphoning off the espresso. The cleaner my desk gets, the calmer my nerves get. The irony of that does not escape me.

breathing. When I get this wacked out, sometimes I forget and catch myself holding my breath. I hate it when that happens.

water. For a couple of weeks I've not been drinking my daily water. For a couple of weeks the scale has been going in the wrong direction along with my mood. The last 3 days I've been back to drinking my water and the scale and my mood are back to moving in the right direction. Coincidence?

FRIDAY!

Sunday is only 2 days away. Did you know Sunday's are my favorite day of the week? There's just something about them....

Pixie cooking lessons. She and I are going to make lasagna and berry bread pudding. My kitchen will suffer but it will be a nice mommy pixie moment. I'll be sure to get loads of pictures. Sometimes it's OK to just take pictures.

being a sky freak. If you don't stop and just look up every now and then, you have no idea what you’re missing. Life on the ground can be hard and dreary sometimes. You need but look up to escape your bonds. Look up and appreciate, look up and dream.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggdoi0rgSjI