January thoughts...

"Giving is the secret of a healthy life...not necessarily money, but whatever a man has of encouragement and sympathy and understanding..." --J.D. Rockefeller Jr.

January is gone. Where did it go and how can it be that time flies away so quickly? "The secret of a healthy life..." This has been a month of "self help" and a focus on a healthy life and healthy relationships. Just yesterday Fred and I went to one of the Boundaries seminars put on by renouned experts in the field (fabulous, by the way). I have been journaling a bit today and so the temptation is there to randomly journal here...but I'll restrain myself and share more broadly what has filled the month of January here in my corner of the world as time flies by!

Attached are a few photos--it has been a month of a little remodeling. We restored our hard wood floors in our two bedrooms. Under the yucky dirty carpeting turned out to be honey colored hard wood that looks old and worn but really yummy. The photos don't show the floor very well, but when we're completly finished the rooms will be lovely. Notice the tulips? That's the front bedroom and I grew those tulips inside in a jar with floating bulbs. Each day they grew about an inch until the tulips opened and filled the room with color.

There's a picture of Daniel in the rain. That's because here in SoCal it has rained more than it has the entire year of 2007. It's raining today too. And then there's the photo of the little Burney kids just before I left for home on January 3rd.

Last weekend was a scrapbook weekend--always causing me to be introspective as I attempt to leave behind a history for the generations of my family who will follow me. If I could just have a picture of the moments before we left the hotel on the beach where we scrapped and Penny and Lydia and friend Kaylie and I went to the beach and swung in the swings there. The wind was blowing so hard and the ocean was as stormy as I've ever seen it and we swung together higher and higher with such exhilaration and then leaped from the swings into the sand laughing and playing. A moment to capture in my heart forever.

This weekend Fred took Daniel to a Night at the Museum (natural history) just the two of them to explore and pretend to be VIPs and for Daniel to feed the spiders and scorpians himself. Penny and I went to a depressing play at our local museum together after dinner on the beach in Malibu. The play was a modern adaptation of Oddysey--imagine my 12-year old granddaughter interpreting it for me since she had just read the book! This is very encouraging as I look forward to my dottering years when much will have to be explained I'm sure!

Then yesterday a seminar all day and today breakfast for my folks, lunch for my folks and meds and dinner for my folks. My sweet husband even went to the mall today to do my parent's Valentine's Day shopping for each other simply because it was on their minds. In between I've been ordering books online, baked cookies, watched a sad but beautiful movie with my patient husband, worked a bit, and then watched the pre-game re-enactment of the Declaration of Independence--a GREAT and nice touch by the National Football League, I have to say!

Now the evening is here, almost, and I wish I had the weekend to look forward to and that tomorrow wasn't a work day. I long to scrapbook, I long to write stories for my family, I long to paint, I long to sort and organize and to nest. But then I remember that there is so much to look forward to--this weekend we will get to hold those little ones up North and see how the newest little grandchild has grown. How blessed we are.

I listened yesterday evening to a story about the president of a major religion who has just died. He at 97 said that he would just keep going as long as he possibly could because he still had so much work to do. And if he couldn't get it all done, then the next in line would continue the work. I was amazed by that. Amazed.

Yes, the month is gone and February is here. What will I do with this month? I want to be giving all the intangibles I have to give, because as J.D. said, giving is the secret of a healthy life.