“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~Leo Buscaglia ❤
xoxo Kim
Archive | March 2016
3 Line Tales Week 3 – Reminder
You have amazing writing skills! So much creativity! I love this and felt so much love well up in my chest after reading. ❤ ❤
Visit Sonya’s page for instructions and do participate
My three line tale for this week is
Her Alzheimer’s got worse year by year until she could no longer remember who he was. So he taped it to the wall next to the window but she never looked. Until one day mother Nature fogged the window to reveal an arrow.
Pointing to their wedding picture.
Understanding <3
Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.” ~
Lloyd Shearer
This is true. Almost all of us have been young, will be or are old, have been wrong (both morally & incorrect), probably will be wrong again, are still learning and always will be, have good intentions and try our best, sometimes do not try our best, will fall and get back up, will need help, can help others, will be, have been or are weak in some ways…we are really not that different than each other. Chances are, whatever we are impatient or angry with someone else about, we have been or will be or at least have the potential to be that way or do that ourself. How about we look within, reflect, tap into our empathy and try hard to understand or see to a certain point how or why someone is or can be a certain way or do a certain thing…and show or feel compassion?
I have been guilty of negatively judging others sometimes, getting angry, not understanding or even trying to understand someone’s situation, lashing out, being selfish, seeking revenge….and probably will be guilty of some of these things again but generally I try to stay in tune with my empathy and ability to love and understand.
What a great reminder that can probably benefit most of us now & again. ❤
Much love to you, always…<3
xoxo Kim
xoxo Kim
Courage to overcome
“Find courage to overcome the circumstance.” ~
Lailah Gifty Akita
This is a great reminder that we cannot always choose our circumstances but we can choose to react in a positive way.
Even if we cannot currently choose our emotions, we can choose to think and react positively even if we aren’t truly feeling it just yet.
“Fake it til’ you make it.”
If we act in positive ways and choose positive thoughts, we are more likely to begin to feel and live in positive ways, strengthening and developing positive habits.
This isn’t always easy, it can be so tempting , so easy to give in and succumb to unpleasant situations, emotions, and negativity.
But it’s worth the work it takes to become and remain positive. Even if we’re naturally, generally positive, there’s usually always room to evolve and be even better.
We can choose to do something as simple as stopping to take a few deep breaths instead of reacting in unpleasant ways, reading uplifting quotes, going outside for a walk or to look at the beautiful sky…
Our teacher in Buddhist class tells us to stop after an unpleasant encounter and before reacting, take a deep breath and ask “What would Buddha do?”
We don’t have to be a Buddhist to adhere to this wisdom. Buddha is a symbol of peace, calm, love & compassion….
Even if we don’t know for sure what Buddha would do, we can be certain of what he would not do. He would never react with violence or bitterness or give up and quit his life of compassion, he would never allow problems to wear him out.
I saw this quote today and decided to share here! It can apply to the most minor problems like being stuck in traffic, someone looking at us in unpleasant ways or saying something we don’t like and to more serious problems like depression, physical illnesses, grief, and other difficult situations.
What a great reminder!
😀
Much love & light to you,
xoxo Kim ❤
Maple Sugaring – A Rite of Spring
Beautiful celebration of Spring!! And fascinating information about maple sugaring. ❤ 😀
Spring is here with the calls of red-winged blackbirds, muddy roads and buckets hung on maple trees, which are tapped to collect their sweet sap. Although this winter was very mild, generally New Englanders wait a long time for spring to arrive. A blogging friend from California once commented, “I like the Northeast very much, but I’m astonished that people can maintain such patience and appreciation in living where winter has been so long and harsh.” I had to laugh because I myself often wonder about the state of my sanity living in this climate! Yes, we are a bit crazy to deal with the cold and shoveling lots of snow, but we are rewarded come summer when most of the U.S. is sweltering, we live comfortably with temperatures in the upper 70s and 80s F (20-30 C). We have only a few hot days in the 90s F (35 C), but most days are tolerable…
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Cat Photography
Adorable kitty & great photo! I love cats! This is an interesting interview and I love when a photographer can be open enough to capture things the person is not a big fan of or things that aren’t very pleasant. It’s great to step outside of our comfort zone or just the things we love and expand our minds. 😀
Ode to poetry snobs & judging despots
Amazing writing! I love it!
314
“‘It’s going to happen in three minutes.’ Mark Tapper sat on the edge of his son’s bed and tried to comfort the eight-year-old. He considered calling an ambulance, but he didn’t know if what Jeremy was suffering from qualified as an emergency. He decided to wait for his wife to get home, since she’d be there in just a few minutes anyhow. She’d left work early when the school called, but Mark was able to get to Widowsfield Elementary to pick Jeremy up first.
‘What’s going to happen in three minutes?’ Mark glanced at the clock on the nightstand that displayed 3:11 on the stomach of a Batman figurine. ‘I told you,’ said Jeremy. The desperation in his voice terrified Mark.
‘The Skeleton Man’s coming.’
‘I don’t know what that means, kiddo. Help me out here.’ Mark tried to wipe sweat from his boy’s brow, but Jeremy jerked away as if frightened by contact. ‘Who’s this Skeleton Man you keep talking about?’
‘He’s coming, and then everyone’s going to go crazy. Dad, I don’t want to kill you again.’
The statement was more than a little disconcerting. Mark stood up and put his hands on his head in exasperation as he stared down at his quivering child. He’d tried to stay calm through all of his son’s outbursts, but he couldn’t take it anymore.
‘That does it. Mom can meet us at the hospital. Do you think you can walk, or do you want me to call an ambulance?’ This manic episode confounded the school nurse, and it was getting worse the longer it went on. When Mark picked his son up from school, Jeremy had simply been crying, but now his mania had gone from concerning to disturbing.
‘There’s no time. I can already hear his teeth.’ Jeremy looked at his father and chattered his teeth, as if he was freezing cold. Then he looked at the clock and they both saw the time change. 3:12
Jeremy put his hands under his pillow and bunched it up so the sides covered his ears. He clenched his eyes shut and continued to weep.
‘You should just kill yourself. Make it easy. Just shoot yourself in the head and get it over with. You can’t handle what’s coming. No one can.'”
(The beginning of book 1 in the trilogy.)
Wth?! Lol This scene is what got me hooked (a little bit obsessed!) with this trilogy a few years ago.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to read it if it doesn’t have an ending until reading all three but that scene pulled me in and I decided to read it anyway even if I had to wait for the other two books to come out.
Today is a special, special day! (so is every other day but today is especially special! Lol ;-))
It’s 314!
There’s a fiction book trilogy, called 314 (see the scene above!) , It’s one of the best things I ever encountered in this life.
Lol
It’s an incredibly bizarre story, involving what seems like other dimensions. We cannot read books 2 or 3 without first reading book 1 or we won’t make an ounce of sense of it. Book 1
Itself is very difficult to comprehend in some ways. And books 2 and 3 only get weirder.
I wrote about it here
https://inspirationalgem.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/some-comforting-words-about-moving-forward-and-book-review-314/
a couple years ago.
If I remember correctly, there’s a lot of errors in my post that I don’t think are corrected, like spelling and grammar errors and stuff. I don’t know why. Usually, I don’t mess up like that. I remember reading my post a while after publishing it and thinking “like wth?!”
Lol
I was going to correct the errors but never got around to it. Who cares, right?! You get the message. I’m no grammar phanatic (i’m a philadelphia girl, it’s how we spell fanatic lol) so yeah.
Anyway, today is 314! So in honor of this lovely, lovely (and wonderfully rainy!) day, I’m going to promote this wonderful author and his trilogy! And again share some deep wisdom in this story!
I must warn you. These books are nassstaaayy!
Lol Full of gore and stuff, which I usually don’t care for! But at least the violence can’t occur for real because it’s like dead human-canine kids who kill people. They come out of some green fog and just tear everyone to shreds.
I can’t even begin to explain.
Book 1 doesn’t have a complete ending, it doesn’t even touch on the conclusion of the story but I was satisfied at the end before reading books 2 and 3.
I felt as if I had some somewhat sensible, if vague, answers.
One thing I love about the books is, the story involves friends, both new and old, unconditional love, wisdom, and is just wildly entertaining and freaky.
You won’t read anything more bizarre as long as you live. I can almost guarantee it!
Each year on March 14th, at 3:14pm, incredibly bizarre and terrifying things begin to happen to a town called Widowsfield.
And the people kind of know something is about to happen but they don’t really know, at least not consciously. Some remember some of the events better than others. They know they are going to die….again….then again…in the most horrific, agonizing ways.
It’s just freaky!
Here are some interesting scenes:
“Jaime looked down at her scrawling. 3.141592653”
‘Is that pi?’
‘Yeah. We were supposed to memorize ten digits of it for Mr. Trager for pi day.’
Anna settled back in her chair and snickered. ‘Sure, for the test this morning. Why are you still writing it?’
Jaime paused for just a moment. ‘I don’t know. There’s something calming about it. Is that crazy?’
‘A little bit, yeah.’
Anna watched Jaime write the sequence over and over, oddly transfixed.
Then Jaime wrote the final digit as a 4 instead of a 3 in one line.
‘You got that one wrong.’ Jaime didn’t stop writing and didn’t look up.
‘There’s no such thing as a perfect circle. There’s chaos in all of it.’
Jaime looked up at the ceiling and then at the window before she asked, ‘Do you hear that?’
“Anna watched the shapes in the fog advance. The silhouettes of children ran across the field from their school, and the barking of dogs grew louder. Soon, the soccer players were attacked and chaos erupted in the library. Teachers and students rushed to the window and time returned to normal as everyone panicked. Jaime moved closer to Anna and ignored the massacre outside. “Why are we doing it again? Why do I know what’s going to happen? I’ve never felt this way before.”
“Jaime and Anna ignored the bloody scene; they’d seen it countless times before. Jaime pulled Anna between two book shelves, away from the screaming mass, to speak in private.”
“…’I don’t know, I can’t explain how I know. I’m not sure what’s going on. I just, for a minute, I could hear him in my head. I knew his thoughts. He’s looking for a girl he lost. She was an innocent, and he needs her to help him stop this from happening again.’ ‘I don’t understand any of that,’ said Jaime.
‘I don’t either, but I know he’s going to keep doing this over and over until he finds her.”Then what?’ asked Jaime. ‘I don’t know.'”
“Jaime and Anna embraced as they waited for their inevitable death. Then it would begin anew, slightly different from the times before, and they would forget the prying mind of The Skeleton Man as he continued to try to complete the circle.”
And here is a scene out of one of the trilogy books that I shared in the post above. This scene is full of wisdom & hope.
This is what I wrote in the other post:
The girl, Alma, whose brother disappeared in 1996 meets a little girl but the little girl isn’t real. She’s kind of ghost -like or a figment of someone’s imaginings. She was sent to Alma to help protect Alma. She is a very wise little girl. And she has some comforting words for Alma. Alma’s life has been painful. She’s a young teacher. Her dad was abusive to her and her brother and he still comes after her as an adult. He is addicted to the meth drug. Her mom went insane after her son (Alma’s brother) disappeared and she became sick with severe depression. And she died by suicide because she couldn’t handle her son being missing.
Then Alma watches her friends dying over and over all day everyday and she is so confused and worn out and knows her own life is in danger. All the characters think they’re going crazy. Alma just wants to give up. Just when she collapses outside thinking she can’t go on anymore, a little girl about ten years old comes to Alma. She reminds Alma of herself when she was a little girl.
This little girl takes Alma’s hand and says:
“It’s not a bad thing to remember our worst days but it’s important that we learn to move on. “
Alma responds saying
“I’ve had a lot of bad days.”.
The little girl puts her head against Alma’s arm and says
“I know you have. But you can’t let those bad days ruin the ones you’ve got left to live.”.
Isn’t this beautiful?! So much wisdom and light. We don’t have to allow painful memories and things that happened before to hold us back and ruin our present days.
I hope you’re having a lovely 314 full of love & laughter and not full of gore, green fog, canine kids, and the Skeleton Man! 😉
❤ 😀
Much love to you,
Xoxo Kim
Roses Are Red
This is breathtaking! Awe-inspiring! The color red is one of my favorites, so vibrant and passionate and now I have even more of a thing for it! Lol ❤
And the ending is beyond brilliant! Only a genius can come up with that one! 😀 Everything about this is beautiful. What a masterpiece.
Zen Postcard #1
Beautiful simplicity 😀 ❤
