As the year draws to a close

Good Morning to all! As the year is quickly drawing to a close, it always brings reflection on the past year. It has been a wonderful year, with all it's happy moments and challenges included! The challenges have helped us grow to be better people (I hope for most, this rings true) and perhaps a little kinder to one another.  We reflect on who we were and who we want to be, we reflect on our wins and on our losses, we reflect on what's in our hearts and what's in our souls. The past year we have had our share of wins and loss, I've watched too many friends go through the pain of losing a loved one to the hereafter, but I know they are just on the other side waiting for us. I've met a few of the most wonderful people with hearts as big as the sky. I've shared laughter and I've shared tears. I've watched my wonderful children grown a year older and maybe a little wiser. I have felt my faith tested, but have prevailed with stronger faith and prayers. May the new year bring us all happiness, peace and more love than we can ever fathom!

I was privileged to be able to make our adult hats and Journey Journals donation to the Summit Healthcare Cancer Center in Showlow, the Saturday before Christmas, and I was blessed to have my husband and my beautiful Mother-in-law at my side. They treated us to a wonderful lunch at Licano's Steakhouse (which was not necessary in the least) and I'm truly blessed to have met such a great group of people!

The center is still under construction as you can see from the first picture, and the second picture shows what it will look like on the inside when completed. They are treating patients there presently and they are anxiously awaiting the completion of the center. Please click the above link for more information and how you can help!

I was finally able to meet the most beautiful and wonderfully kind Barbara Bruce, I am so blessed to have had her help in facilitating this donation! What a fantastically awesome lady! <3 

My sister, daughter and I were able to create over 70 hats and 50 Journey Journals to donate! We are now concentrating on children's hats for the Houston donation in April/May. I feel like I'm kind of "behind" on my children's hats, but now that the holidays are behind us (with the exception of New Year's, which I really don't do anything for anyway), I will be working nonstop on catching up! Here are 7 hats completed so far....

I so enjoy creating these little hats!! I have gotten the impression that the need for Journey Journals are greater because there are lots of people that donate hats and blankets and shawls, but the journals seem to be unique to our little group. I just can't seem to give up creating the beautiful hats that we create though, so I will continue to do both!! :)

I hear another little hat calling my name to find and get busy creating, so I will leave you for now...I send my prayers to each and every one of you for a blessed New Year and may the light of God's love touch your heart and soul and help each of you.....................Glow from Within <3

I will not give up...

As this evening finds me perusing the internet in search of my next hat to make, it occurs to me that the internet is chock FULL of blogs that are never updated. Time seems to fly faster as I get older, and it tends to get away from me, before I know it...it has been over a month and a half since my last update! :(  I thought about it many, many times, but that thought sometimes is so fleeting that I barely catch a glimpse before it has flown out the same window it flew in.  As my title suggests, I will not give up posting, even if it seems like it at times. I will not give up making hats and journals, even when I can not seem to find time in this crazy life to sit down and crochet one row. One hat and one journal at a time will make a difference in someone's life, and I will continue on despite the obstacles that sometime appear in my path! Onward and upward, forward ho and all of that jazz!! :)

It has been very busy, hence the reason I am so late in posting a blog update (so sorry). We have had Thanksgiving, and now Christmas is a week and half away! The year has flown by so very fast, but it has been productive for our little group. My hubby and I, along with my beautiful Mother in law, will be traveling north to Show Low next Saturday to deliver our donation of hats and journals. There are over 70 hats and about 50 journals. I would love to have the same amount of journals, but we will do what we can do and that's all we can hope for. I always put a great deal of pressure on myself to get as many done as I can, because I know that it makes a difference in someone's life....but as my sister says, "you are only one person". I'm super EXCITED to be donating them to Summit Healthcare Center in Showlow and so eternally grateful to Barbara Bruce for all of her help in facilitating this donation! I've included her blog, take a gander, it is beautiful reading (wish I could write like her)!

Now before this blank screen gets any whiter, and my brain gets any emptier of the thoughts flying through....Let me share some pictures of the last bit of hats and journals making their way north this coming weekend.. :)

There they all are, in random order with a hat thrown in every now and again LOL :D We had fun making the journals, but then we ALWAYS have fun anytime we get together and start creating! Our Mom was able to create some also, and there are many varied kinds....elaborate, busy, childish (for those of us who will always be children at heart), sweet, fun and even inspirational ones. Got the urge to create with us yet? I promise it will be fun and worth every single second!

I have been busy with children's hats as well, but I will wait to share the photo's with you in this blog until my next update (maybe it won't take me as long to update that way ;) ?) This update isn't real "newsy", but I kid you not, I sat down and my mind totally went blank *sigh*. Well, until my next update....may the light of God's love touch your heart and soul and help you to......Glow from Within <3

Discovering who you are

Good morning all! I hope this Saturday finds you all well and happy! :)  As my title suggests, discovering who you really are can take a lifetime, or no time at all. I'd like to think that it hasn't been a whole lifetime for me, but 47 is kind of "late in life" lol. I learn more about myself every day, and hope the journey of self discovery continues until my ticket has been punched and it is time for me to greet my loved one's on the other side. I've often said, I'm not extremely religious, everyone has their own belief's and that's what makes the world go around, but I am spiritual. I do believe in God, prayer and faith. I don't believe that you HAVE to go to church to get to heaven, and that what matters most is how you live your life. I'm no angel by any means, I have horrid habits that I would like to break, I'm sometimes mean when I have no intentions of being mean, I can be very short tempered, critical...the list could go on and on with my faults. I like to believe that at the core, I am a good person with a big heart and a huge capacity to love. My son once said to an ex-girlfriend who was really nervous to meet my spouse and I..."My Mom loves everyone". That touches me deeply, because I do...unless you give me a reason not to. I'm as real and honest as it gets (sometimes to a fault), I don't sugar coat anything LOL!

So on this journey of self discovery, I have learned that I'm extremely introverted....look it up, it isn't all bad :)! I have a strong believe in anything "paranormal", spirits, angels, aura's, the power of crystal's and the moon, astrological signs, etc. I am a work in progress, with many lessons yet to learn. A couple of recent lesson's for example.....Walking away when the chaos/noise is out of my control and I can do nothing to change it, wow, THIS one is hard and will forever be one that is constantly worked on!! The second lesson was HUGE, and I can tell you that it was almost like a slap in the face (as in WAKE UP blondie)! Those of you who follow my blog, know that in June we lost our Coco, who was just the sweetest puppy, her physical absence is still so hard to deal with. Well, since that time, I have been unable to even look at an owl's picture, let alone hear one hooting at night, it was always a knife in the heart. Someone I consider a good friend who is also a medium, with the help of our Coco from the other side, pointed out that the biggest lesson to learn is "forgiveness" and without it I would become "stuck". Well, talk about the light bulb going off over the head!! I felt I had learned this lesson pretty well, for humans. I had no idea that I should be learning this lesson for animals too! That owl was doing what it does, and how wrong of me to NOT forgive it for taking away our precious puppy. :( Things happen the way they do for a reason, and even though the lesson is horribly difficult, we still must learn it and be grateful for the blessing of the lesson. It is our cross to bear on how quickly we learn the lesson, or if it must be repeated until we do. Since this lesson, I am more at peace and can look at a picture of an owl again and appreciate it's beauty, even if the beauty is deadly, for all of God's creatures great and small are beautiful!

I must now take the opportunity to ask for prayers of peace and comfort to my surrogate second family who is going through a difficult time right now. Cancer affects us all, as I have said many, many times. My heartfelt prayers go to them as they go through what they are going through, May her journey be peaceful, and may you always know that she will be around you ALWAYS. Also sending prayers of peace and comfort to friends and family members of little Haley who recently lost her battle with cancer. She touched many hearts while she was here, and her influence is still being felt! Holding Hands for Haley ALWAYS Please remember these two families in your prayers and all those going through trials and tribulations of life in general.

Now, I do have some beautiful pictures to share with you of what we have been up to, even if I have a hard time finding time to update, I'm still busy! Please enjoy the next few pictures of some hats and journey journals!

The last beauty was created this morning for a friend's Mom who I know is receiving chemo treatments. Our total for adult hat's is at 70 right now. I will be starting to work on children's hats from here on out, until donation in April for those. I'm still working on getting our Journey Journal count up for the adult donation which will happen in December hopefully. Now, this year we will be donating to Summit Healthcare in Showlow AZ due to unforeseen challenges at our local MD Anderson. My contact is no longer there, and upon emailing them to coordinate the donation, I was told that handmade items were on hold indefinitely until a policy had been put into place regarding infection control. I don't know about ya'll, but I would think, as big as they are and as many donations they receive, that this policy would have already been in place....but the recent Ebola scare worldwide has thrown a monkey wrench into our normal donation routine. Never fear, I have been guided to donate to another place and I believe it will do the most good there anyway.

I should probably stop rambling and get busy taking care of a few things around my poor neglected house LOL! Have a blessed day everyone and until my next update...........may the light of God's love touch each and every one of you and help you to Glow from Within....<3