A Day of Feeling Full on Gratitude.

Gratitude.


I am feeling grateful today to a few people who have helped me, or inspired me along the way.

When I began my blog, I was not sure what all my reasons were in beginning this journey. I knew that it would all come to fruition at some point. What I do know now, is what I love about blogging. Here are a few of those things.

Community

 I have met a whole community of great bloggers, and writers alike. I have made invaluable online friends, and connections, worldwide. That is amazing to me! To think that I have written with and linked up with people from Canada, to the USA to the UK, all in a day’s work! People I admire, people who inspire me, people I enjoy connecting with!  These people have encouraged me, given me invaluable feedback and supported me, at times when it was difficult to find it close to home with friends, family and acquaintances.

Learning and Growth

Trying to build a blog is not an effortless thing to do. Creating a blog, updating it, learning about new buttons, current changes, updates to programs....not really my cup of tea. I am not the savviest person in the world when it comes to technology, I can hardly use my cell phone properly, and I don’t own an IPod, IPad or IPhone! Keeping up with two blogs, learning it all on my own, and with the help of some great blogging sites, I do an ok job of learning something new every day. I love the challenge that blogging offers, and I thrive on the knowledge that it is a never ending growth.

Documenting a Journey

Documenting our life on my blog will be a way for my daughter to know me, and read my thoughts and feelings, when the time is right. In my writing, she will ascertain how I view life, she will know how much I love her, she will learn about me, and my complexity.  I hope all of it will encourage her to be her own person and not conform to anyone’s vision of her, including my own.

I have had the pleasure of participating in writing groups, writing classes, writing challenges and online forums with some amazing people. Here are some links to just some of them. I am grateful to them, and I hope that you will enjoy their stories, their writings, what they have to offer.

Through the Momoir Project, I have shared the trial and error that comes with writing our stories. A few of us have been published here, and I wanted to share a few of my favorites, all though there are many more here if you check out the site.

A funny spin on getting your husband to pick up his own laundry – The Laundry Fairy. Oh, and getting “fancy”, or not! -  Time to get Fancy

A woman who inspires me with anything I have read of hers – A Room of My Own

How do you really answer the questions of lyrics sung by LMFAO – The Battle of LMFAO

The truth about real beauty – Smart and Beautiful

Don’t be in a hurry to let your kids grow up – Rushing Through the Baby Years

Please, come back to this page when you have time, save it to your favorites, click on the links, check out the sites, read the stories, they are really good. Honest, I would not stear you wrong!

Thanks for stopping by!

My Most Beautiful Thing

Today I’m taking part in the My Most Beautiful Thing Blogsplash to celebrate beautiful things – inspired by Fiona Robyn’s new novel, The Most Beautiful Thing. Bloggers from all over the world are taking part and writing or posting pictures of their most beautiful things today. Find out more here and see everyone else’s blog posts here.

For my sixteenth birthday, my brother gave me a cat.  Tess was white with a grey patch on her head and lucid green eyes. I took her from my house to my first apartment. It was in that same apartment that she gave birth to her babies. I did what the books said, put my own clothing on the floor for her, in the corner of my closet, dark and warm. She wouldn’t have it; she was determined to have those babies in my arms. She had those babies, each one, as I held her. It was nauseating and beautiful all at once.

  A while later, I was faced with a break up and wanted to leave town, and so I left for an adventure. Leaving her was really difficult.  I missed her something horrible when I was away. Being that I didn’t know how long I would stay in this new city, I went and got myself another cat. I named him Wylie. He was the opposite color of Tess; he was dark grey with a white belly.

Wylie stayed with me during my short stint in another city, sleeping curled around my neck, never leaving my side.  Getting him home was not an easy thing to do. I had no money and in the end, I trusted a cross country truck driver to bring him to my home city. He arrived before me, and was taken in by my family until I arrived home.

Wylie was with me for 18 years. In that time he was my friend, my comfort, and at times, the only constant I had in my life. It was a Sunday night that he slowly died in my arms. The next morning he could not move on his own, he could not close his eyes, he was struggling to breath. With an injection at the vet, Wylie was gone, and I felt like my heart was broken in two.

With Wylie gone, there was emptiness in me, and in my house that I hated. So I did what any pet lover would do, I went to save another cat! I ended up coming home with two, but it is one in particular that I want to tell you about.

His name was Harley. When I saw him, it was love at first sight. I did not want a white cat; I did not want a grey cat. He was the perfect color of soft caramel, creamy orange, and he was beautiful! His big amber eyes looked at me, he tilted his head, he played his cards right. I am sure he knew that he had just imprinted on me, and I was just as much his as he was mine.

At home, he did not want anything to do with me. He hid under my bed, he hissed at me, and with every call, I got his name wrong! On the third day, he emerged. He walked around, I told him his new name would be Harvey, and soon, we were fast friends!

Harvey is an indoor cat, but when someone goes to the door, he runs after them, and he lifts his paw, stretching it high above his head, imploring to go out.

In the morning, when I walk into the kitchen, he races off of my bed, rips past me, jumps first onto my kitchen stool and then leaps onto the counter in front of my window. He’s a hungry guy first thing in the morning.

When I am working downstairs, he jumps on my desk, he rubs everything he can reach, knocks over anything that does not have weight to it, listens to my reprimands for making a mess and wasting my time by having to pick up everything that he has knocked over. He chews any piece of plastic that I do not have covered; he walks on my keyboard and steps in my ink pads.

Harvey is my biggest distraction. Several times a day, I am taken aback by his handsomeness, his mischievous nature, his begging eyes that plead with me to come and snuggle him. I love the downy softness of his underbelly, the rumble that begins in his tummy and up to his throat and comes out in the form of a purr. I adore his cute caramel brown nose and his fur, a softness that I have never felt on any cat I have ever known.

Harvey offers an unconditional love, that every day, is my most beautiful thing!

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your day.

Tannis 

Getting ready for a Blogsplash

On April 24th, I have been invited to partake in a Blog splash to celebrate and share, My Most Beautiful Thing.

This was inspired by Fiona Robyn's latest novel The Most Beautiful Thing, which I have downloaded and am still reading through. I have learned that I am slower at reading a book if it is online and not in my hands where I can pick it up, smell it, turn it's pages!

People from all parts of the world are going to come together, and share their words, and their photos of their most beautiful thing. I have been sitting with this idea, along with the idea of finding something beautiful every day, no matter how small. I know what I am going to write about  as my most beautiful thing, I am just waiting for the moment I am ready to get it out of my head and onto paper (then in type on my blog!)

The other night, I was witness to a very beautiful thing. The rain. The day had been quite dreary, and cool. With evening, came the rain. I loved opening my bedroom window, even if the breeze entering was cool. I have been longing to hear the pitter patter of the rain drops on my gazebo and see the water providing nourishment to my roses under my window and my garden. There are 3 nights each month that the moon shines through my bedroom window, if that night had been one of them, it would have been perfect!

All of the blogspash participants are listed here, if you are interested in participating, consider this your encouragement that you should do so! If you are not interested, please take some time today to consider, what is Your Most Beautiful Thing? Is it the sunshine on your face, the outstretched paws of your pooch greeting you at the end of the day? Maybe your most beautiful thing is the perfectly puckered lips of your baby, the new CD you just listened to, or the sound of your childs laughter. Tell me, what is your most beautiful thing? I hope that every day, we can find one thing that is beautiful, makes us pause for a moment, takes our breath away, or just makes us smile.

Have a great weekend, and thank you for stopping by!

Tannis

Wanting to do it isn't enough! You have to NEED to do it!

Is there a need in you for anything? How can you nourish your curiosities and your wants and see what they grow into? If you do need something, how do you currently honour this need? How could you honour your needs in a small way today and every day this week?

These are questions my e group  is working on this week. Questions we ask ourselves each week to provoke us to discuss or write.

 Loving to act, vs. needing to act, loving to write, vs. needing to write. For me, I need to be creative. It could be baking, cooking, creating a new recipe, or writing.

It could mean crafting, creating a new scrapbook page layout, perhaps using colors that scare me to think of putting them together ( I am a bit matchy matchy). Being creative could be making a new journal, a new card. I "need" to do this almost every day. Being creative could also mean planting new flowers in my garden, growing an herb I have never grown before. It could also mean writing from the heart. A new blog post, a poem, a song, an essay, a piece that I think could be a great magazine article. I could write about the best sandwich I ever ate! Those are all things I "need". If only we could all live the glamorous life and have the time, money and resources to make the things we "need" easier to attain.

But there is another need that pulls at me, the one that scares me that freaks me out. The need to not be safe, not be so thoughtful, not be so careful! I always try to make the "right" decision, the logical one, and the one that is best for everyone. I think in my last life, I may have been a gypsy! Every 6 years or so, I feel the need to leave, to wander, to change. Sometimes I do, but as I get older, and build a life and a family, it gets harder. Right now I am fighting the need to move, leave, and start something fresh. Not start over, just maybe...I don't know, search for that thing that brings you peace. There is a much more eloquent way to say it; I just have not found it yet.

When we were travelling through the mountains last summer, we were leaving Kelowna, British Columbia and driving through the Kootenays. I said out loud that I was hoping to find my next "home".  When I think about what it would feel like, I think it would be a place surrounded by the beauty of the mountains, water, and a smell to the air that was clean and clear, a place that I have never known but would recognize when I arrived. A place where I can be close to nature, near beautiful surroundings, away from copious amounts of dust and traffic and severe weather. A place that encourages my creativity, makes me want for less in my life, but allows me the feeling of being rich in everything that matters. I desire a place that I could call "home" because truthfully, I have never known the feeling of home. Snuggling with my daughter, breathing her in, cradling her warmth, is the closest feeling to "home" that I have ever felt.

Then I consider what it would take to leave, to be in search of. It would mean leaving my aging mom, leaving my family (which is so dysfunctional, but still mine), and taking my daughter out of the close proximity of her biological father. Leaving my friends, and the people I enjoy being around, keeping in touch with.
This, above the need for anything else I need, is a need that gnaws at my ribs, plagues my mind, and breaks my heart, every day. It leaves me wondering, do I need too much?

Tell me, is there a "need" in you that you are not honouring?

Thanks for stopping by!

Tannis

p.s. if the above questions interest you and you would be interested in exploring A Year of Questions, please click on my link for Writing Our Way Home. It's a wonderful place to be!