Here's To The New Year!!

Soon it will be 2015.  The new year brings so many hopes, new beginnings and promises we make to ourselves.  However, I see it's mainly about hope; for me anyway.  Hope for another chance, hope for another dream to become a reality, hope for miracles. I love miracles.  Even the ones that find me a parking space when there seems to be none to be found. I love them!

I've had a lot of free time the past week or so.  It feels good to just sit, maybe get up and clean a bit, sit again, play on the computer, check people's lives out on facebook, watch hgtv  over and over and of course, Millionaire Matchmaker.  For some reason this holiday has not been the heavy, intense looking back at my past, keeping in mind spirituality is 'supposed' to be at the forefront of my existence, type holiday. I am however,  grateful for how rich I really am in the big picture of life.  Don't get me wrong; I do think on those aspects...a lot. But it's really nice to space out and be a mouth breather for a while.

Getting back to hopes, dreams and all that other stuff.





 At my age, I still feel there is so much ahead of me although I realize just how fragile life can be. I ended the year being able to do what I have dreamed of doing for the past four or five years now; decorating someone else's home and actually getting real money for the endeavor.  My client was the sweetest young lady, (Meaning she was about my daughter's age.) who is busy with four kids and a huge, relatively new, home.  I was in heaven when I saw her home.  I was in heaven, even feeling high, when I was able to put all of my ideas into realities.  In the end, she was very happy with my work, and I was very appreciative of her trust in my decisions.  And her home?  It came to life with a warm smile of gratefulness .

When I do things like this it's truly like objects have their own soul.





 I refinished an old cabinet for her and as one step after another made it closer to the finishing product,




 I felt  it coming to life; being grateful that I hadn't given up hope in it's potential.  I felt it saying  it wanted another chance at beauty, at life, at a home to shine in. And I gave it that chance.






 It sure proved to be worth it as the cabinet is now sitting in an honored, special place in their huge entryway.  Happy ending.



So, for Christmas my husband gave me a 'website'. Yep, that's right! A website all my own.  It's called SpaceSweetSpace.com.  At least I think that's the way it's supposed to be typed into the search engine. No, I haven't even built it yet, it's waiting to be birthed.  Wish me luck on that!  Thus begins my journey into 2015.  Hopes and dreams of doing what I want to do AND just maybe, hopefully, getting paid....getting paid well.  (The doubter in me just wonders on that one...but hey, anything's possible.)

I suppose I should get out all my self help books, all of my inspirational 'you can do it' books and just cover myself in encouragement and positive framing.  I probably will do just that, after this one last episode of Millionaire Matchmaker.

Yet again, always again, I digress.  The future.  Hopes and dreams.  Love and beauty.  Relationships and life.





That's what it's all about. I have no idea what the new year holds.  Life has been pretty wonderful the last few years.  No drama, just a great life in the sun, never too cold, never too hot. I'm looking forward to another year like this one, only with one new addition:  Space Sweet Space.  It will not be the norm, it will not follow the rules, it will be amazingly beautiful.


Here's to you and your dreams.  I'll lift a glass to all who read this, and I'll hope, dream, and pray all your happiness comes true this year.  love!

Ode to My Daughter

Last night at a party I was talking to a mutual friend of our daughter's and ours. My daughter used to train at the gym I go to and this friend took her classes. He told me how he missed her, how there is no one like her, etc. etc.  As I listened something remarkable happened.  I suddenly started seeing her not as my daughter but as a woman in her own right.






The friend proceeded to tell me about how strong she is, about what a presence she has.  He told me when she walks into a room, everyone knows she's there.



Yes, my daughter. A quietly powerful woman who changes the atmosphere of a room for the better....always for the better.  Gracious, elegant, sophisticated and wise.

If you have a grown daughter you may get what I'm writing about.  I've watched her grow, but  never was able to step back, take off my "mother" hat and see her as someone I've just met. Last night I had the "ah ha" moment, last night it happened.  In some odd way, my momma hat blew off and there she was, in my mind, unattached to me.  I like her a lot!

The strange thing about this whole new perspective is now I see this strong woman, yet I switch to another scene.  She is lying in her newborn aquarium  (that's sure what it looked like to me as they were taking me to recovery after an emergency c-section done under general anesthetic )  They stopped in the hallway and rolled up  a little glass container where my new baby lay.  It looked like a tv screen with a tiny, fragile, porcelain human type doll  with the most amazing eyes.  Piercing eyes.  They looked straight into my soul, and mine into hers.  For the first time I felt what truly is unconditional, pure love.  Never before had I experienced such a powerfully deep force.  And of course, I teared up.   That moment was seared to my soul.  I'll never forget it....It's like it was just yesterday it's so clear!



As a mother I have so many regrets.  I still do.  Not standing up for her enough, not cuddling her 24 hours a day, you know, the same old stuff that can keep your mind from thinking about the weather when it's 3 a.m. and you've had too much coffee that day.  But I want this to be about her, not me. I digress.

Back to my girl, now beautiful woman.  This friend from our party last night talked about how he misses her  and I could tell he was sincere.  So many people say the same thing. I see they're not just saying it because that's what you say when someone says goodbye.  It's been a while since she's been gone and they still tell me the same thing.  We have a trainer who's taken her place and what is said when they talk about my girl;   "Yes, the new guy is nice, he's a good trainer, but he's not Shauna."

She is now in the ranks of the underpaid,  under appreciated teachers dealing with our country's greatest natural resource, children.  This is what she was meant to do...at least for now.  Her passion is evident when I hear her talk about experiences with  the students.  Her love, compassion and wisdom  follow her around like the sun would if it were never to set and there wasn't  a cloud in the sky.




 In her personal life, she juggles three kids, a husband, a dog, a cat and a home.





 Something I know I could never do without being a grouchy bitch.  She takes it in stride and deals with all of the rocky places with grace. She, of course, won't see it that way. Maybe someday she will...I hope so.









She is determined, sassy, beautiful, and chooses her words carefully. But when she finally does speak, she means what she says.  She's to the point, firm, and all done with a beautiful  smile..




So, I'm talking about my little girl here.  This baby I brought into the world those years ago when I was just a young thing myself.  Now, she has her own girl to ponder , to love, to watch grow, to someday write about.








 (Did I mention what an amazing writer she is?)







It brings to mind the song GiGi. I'll change the words a little, but the sentiment is there, in me.

Getting older, it is true
which is what they always dotill that unexpected hourwhen they blossom like a flower! But...but,There's sweeter music when she speaksIsn't there?Could I be wrong?Could it be so?Oh where, oh wheredid that little girl go? Am I a fool without a mindOr have I merely been too blind to realise
You're not at all
That funny, awkward little girl, I knew
Oh no! Over night there's been a breathless change in you While you were trembling on the brink
was I out yonder somewhere blinking at a star?
Have I been standing up too close
or back too far?
When did your sparkle turn to fire?
And your warmth become desire?
Oh what miracle has made you the way you are?

Why you've been growing up before my very eyes

Finding Our Way Home

Christmas is a time of year that brings this longing in me which is usually neatly tucked away all year  long with the Christmas decorations. And then, there it is....Again and again.  Year after year.





The longing consistently echoes,  " I want to go home."





“For twenty years I have ached to go back home, when there was nobody there to whom I could return.” 
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith  

I used to have a recurring dream that I was in the town where I was born and raised.  I was a few miles from my childhood home walking down the dark, neighborhood streets.  In the dream it's always night time. Even though I was only a mile or so away, it seemed like worlds away...in my dream.  Only once did I make it back, and it was only to the front yard.  The yard wasn't recognizable.  It even had a gate around it. I didn't go in. 

I think of all my loved ones who have died. I think I feel them more  this time of year.  Is it because they're on my mind more? Or something else? Home is just one of those words...I think of love, I think of being known, I think of days gone by, I think of my own humanity.

But really, home is grace.  It's where we are fully accepted.

 God became flesh.  God became a child, a toddler, a teenager, a young man.  Jesus was fully human. 

 There were some who totally annoyed him. And there were some who encouraged him. Some turned out to be his friends. Some turned on him; betrayed him.  He had the same things in him that we have. 

The desire for sex, the temptation to get really angry and lash out, the temptation to defend himself, the temptation to defend what he believed. The temptation to eat too much, drink too much.  He didn't though. He didn't defend any of that.  Once, he got really angry...and it was over money. And it was in a house of worship.  It was over greed.  But he was always pretty quiet. I think he probably really was intense. People probably thought he was too sensitive.  And I believe he hung out with people like me.   I'm not so sure he'd be sitting in many of our churches...but hey..maybe?

"So the story goes, so I'm told
The people he knew were
Less than golden hearted
Gamblers and robbers
Drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers
Like you and me"

That is grace.  Jesus, not doctrine, not religion, but Jesus, his example, his words, have set an example for me that helps me know how to get back home; get back to that innocence that was lost so long ago. 

 

It's a long journey.  Lots of bumps in the road, lots of times feeling the need for a good shot of vodka, chocolate or too much food .  But in spite of the bumps, after the vodka, after too much eating,  there it is; home...grace. Like a beautiful shining castle in the midst of the ghetto. It's such a mystery, such a miracle.  It is the lighthouse of humanities sea that guides us home.

“I do believe that God is with us even in our craziest, most obsessive, most neurotic moments.  It's  this goodness that guides, provides, and protects.” 
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Emanuel...peace on earth and goodwill to men.

Love you and thanks for reading!!!