there's always a choice

When was the last time you stopped and told yourself, 

"Life is good."

Where were you?

Not the kind of 'good' where everything is great,

but the kind where, even when everything isn't great,

Life is still good.

For me, this happened this morning when I woke up.

I stared at this air vent and that very thought came to me.

I was very aware that it came over me,

and how involuntary the thought was.

Like when you're happy you're just happy.

You just know it.

It was a good thought and I smiled,

but I think I smiled more 

at the fact that "Life is Good" is inside me somewhere - not dependent on what goes on outside.

Life is good through my eyes. 

My soul. 

I made that decision a few years ago and,

despite all that's not exactly right, all that's perceived as unfair,

and all the pain and suffering and evil we are affected by,

I am happy to see that Life is still Good

when I choose for it to be so.

winner

This quote literally 'ran' through my mind today.

I woke up and didn't want to run let alone put on my running shoes.

It was just one of those days.  

I thought to myself, I don't have to run today.

Who would notice?

This thought pissed me off.

I didn't want my mind to be tired and give my body any ideas..

So out the door I went.....I'll just run the first bridge and then I'll turn around.

But when I got to the bottom of that bridge,

my consciousness got mad at my thoughts.

Go farther.

I don't know what made me listen...maybe it was remembering the quote from above.

You're not tired. You're a machine. You are free. Designed to run. 

This worked after the first bridge, so why not try it at the bottom of the second?

I played this game with myself 

and ended up at the base of the 6th and final bridge in my 5-mile course...

Better, stronger, and winning this internal battle....mind over body, body over mind.

Whichever one is stronger because I've fed it its strength.

And no one else noticed but me.

~ L ~

blue

My next door neighbor, an elderly man, is a Zoologist.

He is a retired professor from the University of Wisconsin.

I had heard a rumor around our neighborhood that he knows more about Blue Jays than possibly anyone in the world.

So when I saw him outside yesterday, I approached him 

with a burning question I've been meaning to ask him...

Do Blue Jays fall in love?

I'd been noticing a pair of Blue Jays in his back yard bird feeder.

"Well it depends who you ask," he replied.

"I believe they do.

They are quite picky about finding a mate and stay a pair until one dies."

Sigh.

Just what I was hoping to hear.

What a crazy role Love has in evolution...and this is just touching upon a tip of the iceberg.

Limitless heart

When someone you love so much is in so much pain, either physically or emotionally, and you feel their pain within you, so intensely that its constant dull ache can only be cured with their relief - that is when you know your love for this person has no limit.

Not that I needed proof that I love my mom so much.  But it's a reminder, and is ironically and painfully refreshing to know that my heart knows such depths................

........such 

Depths.