Usually, the animals wake me between 5:30 and 6:30 to remind me that they are in need of food right now. Today, it was 6:05 AM. Instead of feeding everyone, keeping my eyes closed to keep the light out and surrendering to the call of my covers, I started the coffee pot and got busy. The first thing I did was strip the sheets off the bed, and with the help of Tommy the Cat, put on fresh sheets so that tonight, I will be rewarded after a long day with the sensual feel of freshly laundered Egyptian cotton.

I wish I could tell you why I was so inspired before the sun had actually risen. I have always been a morning person, true, but for the last few months, I wasn’t an early morning person. I think it’s a sign that the blues are beginning to leave me a bit. I’ve reconnected with some old friends and have made a few new web friends in the past couple of weeks. Talking with these amazing, strong, and inspirational women has helped me more than I can say. I finally wrote a column for All Things Girl after an 11-month absence. And I decided to not replace my fish.

I know that not replacing the fish that left while I was traveling may seem like something odd, but for me, it was a sign that the part of my life was over, and it was time to move on. See, the ex-boy insisted that I needed fish since they were shown to reduce blood pressure. Well, as my Cuban girlfriend, who was house-sitting for me when the fish expired put it: all they did were raise my blood pressure! (Believe me when I say that the story of their expiration is humorous…I must tell it to you soon).

Anyhoo.

Yesterday, I went through the arduous task of dismantling the 10-gallon tank, which went promptly to the curb. Then, I moved the cedar chest that was serving as a tank-stand into the spare room and out of my dining room. Later last night, my dear Cuban friend came back over and helped me further rearrange the furniture in the dining nook of my kitchen. Eliminating that bulky chest and the fish tank opened up this amazing space in there. We moved the China Cabinet and then pulled the leaf out of the kitchen table. WOW. Seriously. I never knew that those few things could make my kitchen/dining area so much more inviting. So, this morning, when I stumbled into the kitchen to feed the remaining creatures of The Menagerie, I felt as if I had the space to really breathe.

I know that Mondays come a bit too often for most of us, but today, Monday was a welcome day. A fresh start with an smorgasbord of opportunities. A day to be celebrated and embrace, instead of a day to hide myself back in the covers.

It’s a beautiful day out there. I hope you are able to find the blessings in your day. If not, maybe the lovely harmonies of The Mamas and the Papas will put your day on a better path. Love and Peace, baby!

I held them in my hand. I could feel the heat of the words; it was as if they would burn through my fingers if I didn’t look at them. But I couldn’t. Look, that is. It was against the rules of the game as the word of the day cannot be seen until the morning when it is placed on the refrigerator door do the right of the handle. And even though I am the one making the rules, I can’t break them.

At least not yet.

The kitchen still dark, I open my hand and gently place the words – one by one – on the side. These would be my words for the work week. My hand was still warm from the words as I climbed into bed for the night. I could hear them whispering to me in my dreams, begging me to “pick me” in the morning.

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Pre-coffee, I reached around the side of the fridge and chose a word. I could feel the heat emanating from all of them, but I can only choose one. I slide it into its space for the day and allow myself to finally gaze upon it. Today, the word is from The Boy.

I could hear this word roll off his tongue and into my ear. It’s whispered to me with his growly bear voice, the one reserved for mornings and intimate moments. When I try the word upon my own tongue, it sounds foreign. So I will keep it in my ear all day. And when I think it or type it, it it comes out only in his voice, a gift to me.

“Glorious,” he says to me. “You, my baby, are glorious. Now be a good girl, and write.”

A combination of work and travel and household dynamics led to the almost abandonment of the backyard as a place to be and was a part of the burden of upkeep of a house. This house had become a burden, not a home.

Through the mirth of a happy accident, I fell in love. I began to realize this house could, if desired, be a home. A home where I could build my life with someone who I was madly in love with. A man who loves me back with as much (or more) passion. Bit by bit, as we began to plan for our future, I began to see this house as a haven from the storm.

And I began nesting.

About once a week, I would clean out a drawer or clean out a closet. I had realized that, although we had been divorced for more than four years, my ex-husband still had stuff here. Not just little stuff, significant amounts of things. Because it was easier to leave stuff he didn’t want to deal with as he created a new life with a new wife. I finally broke the hold this stuff had on me the day I took the wedding gown I had found in the back of the hall closet and put it in the trash and carried it to the curb.

It’s a fabulous story, a story to which I will not digress, but I will tell you this: it was freeing to break the hold my former life had on me. When I finally realized I had been given the chance at a real life with a man who loved me for me. And that it was ok to let go of the trappings, feelings, and burdens of the past.

After my eldest daughter moved out, I went on an all-out-full-scale cleaning binge. I reclaimed this house for my future. Bit by bit. Room by room. Including the back porch.

I’ve swept and cleaned. I’ve planted marigolds. I’ve planted herbs that I will cook with, like basil and sage and dill. I’ve also planted a couple of tomato plants, a cucumber plant and a zucchini plant. I finally took the indoor/outdoor George Foreman Grill out of the box in which it stayed after I bought it a couple of years ago and put it together. And I hung a beautiful little copper wind chime.

Every morning when I water my plants or sit and enjoy my first cup of coffee, I am reminded you are never too old to find love or contentment. Every time I step out on the patio to pluck a basil leaf for something I am cooking, I am reminded it is possible to reclaim yourself from your past, just as I reclaimed the porch. And just as I watch my little tomato plants grow, I am reminded that good things come to those who wait.

My back porch may be simple from an outside observer, but to me it’s a symbol. It’s a symbol to remind me you can give yourself permission to love. And you have to let go of some of the past and purge it out to allow someone to love you back.

I mean to write about the virtue of patience today.  But as it tends to do when left on it’s own, my mind twists and turns.  I begin to wonder who first said that Patience is a Virtue.  At least now I know,  that it was Prudentius.

I have always considered patience to be an outstanding virtue, though it has never been one of my strongest.  Patience is difficult to learn, especially in a society that values instancy.  Being a child of the 70′s, I can recall life before microwaves and computers and cell phones.  I had pen pals and books and remember waiting for dinner to be cooked.  I have at times fallen into the trap of the instant.  I worry, at times, that my children will never understand that sometimes the best rewards in life can be found when you wait for it them My oldest may learn this, however.  As a Culinary student, she is finding that slow, old-fashioned cooking is much better than what is thrown into the microwave.

Patience, while not perfected, is a virtue appearing in my life more often.  Adding  meditation to my daily routine has helped foster that growth.  So has the practice of abstaining from eating meat on Friday’s.  Especially when my children  make tempting dishes.  I am learning I can wait for the leftovers on Saturday instead, savoring he flavors and the care that went into the dish.    I must say, patience seems almost out of reach on days in which I get my nails done and have to wait for them to dry.  And then suddenly, I am rewarded when I realize that my nails are dry.  There are other rewards in patience beyond my gluttonous lust for foods and a cute manicure.  The greatest of these is Love.

Love, you see, is a reward of patience that demonstrates  why early philolsophers considered it a heavenly virtue.  It just took me 41 years to learn.

There have been more changes this year than I have ever had, and the mirth of happy accidents have given me something I never thought I would find:  love.    Not simply love, mind you, but a head-over-heels, how was I ever so lucky to have the love of a man who has become not only my mate but my best friend?   This is one area in which I find it hard to make words, as I am so incredibly blissful and joyous.  As a writer, I am also a voracious reader, so I find that it is often comforting to find the words of others that reflect how I feel.  This is from a letter written by Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1919):

If you should die  – O Darling – darling Scott – It’d be like going blind.  I know, I would, too, – I’d have no purpose in life – just a pretty – decoration.  Don’t you think I was made for you?  I feel like you had me ordered – and I was delivered to you – to be worn – I want you to wear me, like a watch-charm or a button hole bouquet – to the world.

When life has finally given you a person that makes you feel complete it is the most rewarding gift in the world.   I am ever so thankful.  2009 has wrought  the most amazing changes as I begin the next chapter of my life.  Happy Tuesday.

• I was able to sleep in a little, fix some coffee and mediate.
• Spent some quality time just hanging out with my sweetie
• Cooked lunch
• Took a walk
• Grocery Shopped
• Watched a goofy movie with my youngest
• Washed, folded, and put away four loads of laundry
• Played a game of Scrabble in the afternoon
• Had dinner with my youngest, my oldest and her boyfriend as we watched Last Cake Standing

And my day is not yet at a close.  I still am looking forward to:

• Kids going to bed on time without squabbles
• More quality time with my sweetheart
• A clean kitchen when I go to bed so that the day starts fresh tomorrow

Who could ask for much more than being surrounded with laughter and joy and love? Sometimes, I think we put so much emphasis on the big events in life that we lose sight on the absolute joy in the moments of each day.  We are assualted with so many negatives out there.   In fact, there are some folks that I know who seem to live so deeply in the world of the negatives that they can’t find the positives; the miss the sweetness of the moments as they rush from one activity to another or lament upon the bad things in their lives.  Life is simply too short to dwell in the negatives.   I prefer, instead, to look at the sunny side of the street.

Hope your Sunday has been as wonderful as you.

I discovered Curly Girl Designs at my old salon and fell in love. The cards grace my desk as inspirational words. They make their way from my desk into the mailboxes of my girlfriends. The calendar hangs on my walls as I count down the days to special days, like my birthday. I know that so much of the world has gone electronic, but sometimes, there is still nothing like paper and the excitement of having real mail, not just bills, in your mail box. Like physical books, I don’t think cards will completely disappear.

In fact, maybe that should be my goal for the rest of the year, to share a card with a friend at least once a month. I have a fresh stock, you see, because in my mailbox today was a little package of Curly Girl Designs Cards. The order I made in November 2008 was lacking in a certain percentage of mushy cards, cards that I thought were disgustingly sweet now seem just right for where I am in April 2009.

Happy Thursday!

I’ve known Miss J since the 6th grade, which would have made us eleven.   She spent the night at my house, was one of the few friends to attend my wedding shower; but I moved on to my married life and she went away to college.  The rekindling of this friendship after twenty-two years is really sweet.   As you cannot help but do, we discussed some of the folks we went to high school with, and those interactions we had in present day as well as those we had in the past.   Some folks, you see, are unable to live in the present and still cling to the lives of their past.   Some folks are interested in growing and bettering themselves; others are more self-centered and shallow.

She told me today that our freshman year, the purity and sweetness of my voice when I audtioned for the part of Daisy Mae our freshman year moved her; as an artist, she saw beauty there.  It meant so much for her bring forth a brief moment of my past, and let me know that it was something that she still remembered so many years later.  She also confided in me about an action of her past and I was now one of only six people that knew; she told me because she just knew that she could trust me to know and not judge.   A true friend, you see, is someone that you can talk to daily, and still have soemthing to say; or someone that you can talk to after two months and have a milion things to catch up on; or someone you haven’t seen in twenty years, and it feels like you had just seen them the day before.

I am so thankful.

Meditation will be a carryover from Lent this year.

This past Friday,  I began pondering another carryover from my my Lenten observances; continuing the abstinence from eating meat on Fridays.  Oh, I have observed this tradition since I converted to Catholicism over 18 years ago, but this year was the first in ages that the practice didn’t waver in the slightest.  What changed was, not the observance, but my approach.  Instead of looking upon it as a rule of the Church, I viewed it as a vow to myself about sacrifice and self-discipline.  Making it a vow made me conscious of not just honoring it, but of being more conscious of everything that made its way onto my plate and into my mouth.    After talking over some  the rewards of this vow with my best friend, I have decided, indefinitely, to continue my vow of abstinence of eating meat on Fridays beyond the end of Lent.

In all honesty, these two carryovers from Lent dovetail well into my guiding principals for 2009.  Choosing constructive ways of living are showing me the rewards of living in a dynamic manner.  I have more peace, more self-awareness, and have begun to live a life that is truly more fulfilling than I ever imagined.   One of the keys to that fulfillment is learning about vows and self discipline.   And in the journey of this thing we call “life” I am becoming this complete being that everyone deserves to be….. it makes living life a joy.

Happy Sunday.  I hope you’ve had a good week and are anxious to face the glorious week ahead.

Jessica has now gone from blonde to her natural brunette (much prettier) and has begun started her solo career.   I just love this little song, her first single, and the VIDEO is simply too precious for words. I like the lyrics as well as the beat, the joyfulness of the song and the playfulness of the video as she happily belts to the world that she has finally found a boy like her.  So much of Country Music is on a sadder tone, so this is a breath of fresh air.  Enjoy!

I have had such a joyous weekend so far. I am in a very girlie kind of mood and am longing for floral printed dresses and little sandals, so a trip to the mall is certainly in my future today. I am planning to go with Miss O to the special exhibit “Art & Love in Renaissance Italy” at the Kimball Art Museum sometime in the next week or so, and a springy feminine dress seems like just the thing to wear.

Life is truly better than it’s ever been. I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!  Happy Saturday