Gifts, beautiful loving gifts

I have been regaining strength after getting a new hip.

Throughout this somewhat lengthy and intense process,

I have had many blessings.

Friends and strangers were truly there for me - were kind and loving and supportive during the challenge of these weeks.

Above you see a beautiful lady in front of a graceful tree that echoes her loveliness.

These are both gifts to me and like everything that I have experienced,

they compliment each other and yet were not planned to be so.

I think it is a life lesson to receive what others give you from the deep kindness of their hearts.

It is a treasure in my life to experience this.

I am deeply thankful for such blessings.

Before its entirely over

One of my neighbors across the street had their lights down by New Years Day. But yet another still has their small white twinkle lights gracing the cold winter nights we've been having lately.

As for me, I have candles in the windows and my wreath still gets lit by

a spotlight that is on for several hours each dark winter's eve.

I usually leave my candles in the windows until the end of February. Things are so bare that I feel it all needs a little visual warmth!

This image is one I made while playing around with my digital camera as I photographed our Christmas tree.

I almost like it better than the realistic photographs I took.

Artists - they play around! Here's to a year of happy playing around to us all!

New Year Moon tonight!

I confess that I took this photo last year, but it seemed so perfect because tonight, as 2010 arrives, we will also have a rare blue moon.

A blue moon means there are two full moons in one month.

Where the name comes from I have no idea....something to google!

I wish the very best for each one of us for the coming year.

Should everyone actually achieve the very best, then we all win!

Happy New Year!

Beauties of the Season

The first snow has come before Christmas this year.

On the mid-part of the East Coast of the USA that is unusual!

It was a perfect sort of snow. It blanketed the trees and not the streets!

This morning the sun was out again and as I looked from

my window at the tree out front, I saw a ROBIN!!!!

What the heck!

For Thanksgiving Day 2009 - A Poem

Here and Beyond
By Lynne Oakes
Thanksgiving Day 2009

Living on this planet is not an easy matter and so the times that are
Extraordinarily wonderful
Extremely good
Especially precious
Exceptionally beautiful
Ever so succulent
and
Beyond any physical measure

Become all the more extraordinary for the ugly that is out there.

We try to never let any of it touch our children or ourselves, but
Living here in this place it is not yet possible.

It can be done much better than most think to be true, so
Give it all you’ve got to make it
Especially, extremely, extraordinarily, exceptionally fantastic
and
Ever so succulent
carrying it
Beyond any physical measure.

It is a sacred trust, a Sacred Trust to make all Life as sweet as you can~
Your own life and the lives of others that
You touch fully or partly or briefly.

If you had no other purpose than that, it would serve.
It is no small thing –creating the very best experiences in the face of
The daunting challenges of this world.

Basically we come down to the only force worth propelling us beautifully forward:
LOVE.

Reflecting....

While reflections are quite wonderful and interesting in themselves,

what they do is expand that which they reflect, making even more of it.

In this Thanksgiving week, as we are among family and friends,

we will see reflections of each other.

It's not quite the same thing as a photographic reflection,

but if you look closely, I trust you will

see the best thing of all reflected in the faces that surround you:

LOVE.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What I can now see

I couldn't see this tree until earlier this year when my three 80 foot pines were

taken down.

Destruction can make way for new wonders.

This is certainly one of them in my world and I never could see it before those other trees

were gone.

I'm loving the light on the trunk and the changing leaf colors of fall.