This caught my attention and I thought it was worth pondering. Life is too short to not live in the moment and make the most of things as they come by. Just a quick random thougth for today.

Twenty years from now

You will be more disappointed

by the things you didn't do

than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines

Sail away from the safe harbour

Catch the trade winds in your sails

EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER

Mark Twain

Good things....

I recently saw a fridge magnet in a gift store that read

"Not all days are good, But there are good things in everyday"

Even in the darkest of days there are good things that happen. I truly believe that.

We simply must open our eyes and hearts to be willing to see them.

God puts good things in our paths every day, for he desires good things for us.

How often do we miss God's good things?

I have had an idea peculating in my brain for some time about that very thing -then I read that magnet and my brain went into perk overdrive. Not totally ready to share the coffee yet, but soon. One thought is that we spend far too much energy on complaining and negativity and certainly not enough thinking about GOOD THINGS. Or acting on good things. We need to change our way of thinking and how we focus on life. We need to open our eyes and LOOK, and really see in order to find the good, especially in the not so good days. It seems
Especially when it is something that is shoved down our throat, society in general focus' on the bad. Pick up a newspaper on any given day, or listen to the 6:00 news and that negative view on life is confirmed. You might find a 'Good things" article tucked in a corner pages away from the front cover if it is a lucky day and we really have to hunt to find them some days at all.



We complain far too much about things that either we have no control to change or when it comes right down to it really do not matter one way or another. When it is too hot, or too cold, if the price of gas goes up a cent or the advertised special at the supermarket is "temporarily out of stock". When what we really should be thinking is wow, I am glad I do not live in a country where it is 35 degrees or higher everyday, or be thankful that we have a supermarket at all, where we have choice. I try not to be a complainer, however I know that I do... but I am trying to change.

For the past month and a bit I have been taking a moment at the end of the day to write down 1 GOOD THING. The list is growing and I have found that as I go through my day I am looking for good things, my perspective changes and life is just a little bit better from that point of view. I am looking forward to looking back months from now, and simply reading my list of good things.

Some are minor good things:

Cold water today is a VERY GOOD THING!

Oh, a good hair day!

Sweet, take out for dinner tonight.

Others will stay with me forever:

Had great heart to heart with Teryn about Dating while we were out in the van.

Was glad to make Joc & Oscar laugh when I visited today.

Reconnected with an old friend on facebook, I thought I would never hear from her this side of heaven!

Picked raspberries today for the 100'th time, but saw the Joy in a 4 year olds eyes as she picked for the first time in her life.

True some entries are, deeper than others, however each of them were significant to me on the day they were written - a small snippet of how life is good on that given day. Taking time to write them down has begun to change my outlook on life and where my focus needs to be. Finding GOODNESS in the simple things of life. Because like it or not it is our life and we are the only ones who can make the choice for it to be a good one or a not so good one. When it comes right down to it and we are honest, we all want the good life.

However, what that good life looks like, depends on how you look at the good life.

Is the glass 1/2 empty or is the glass 1/2 full? We do not need rose coloured glasses, we just need to open our eyes, goodness is all around us, we just fail to see far to often.

.

We are officially certifible... or maybe just a little crazy!

We arrived home from our vacation at 2:44 AM, yes you read that right AM! Monday morning, it seems that the 2 am hour holds a dear place in our hearts. When we leave to go to Creation Festival we aim to leave at that hour to avoid border line ups, Seattle rush hour traffic and the heat. This weekend we decided to drive in the cool of the evening and arrived home at the magic hour. Some would say we are crazy, we just see it as brilliant.

Driving from Cache Creek we left at 10:30 ish - We were still able to spend a full day enjoying the company of cousins, the pool and just relaxing. What we did miss was driving in the heat, all the traffic coming into to the city after a long weekend both great things to do with out. Especially given that I have what I think is a wicked case of heat rash... brought on during a drive from Cache creek to Kamloops where one thermometer I saw read 39 degrees. 39 freaking degrees! That is Africa weather, not BC even in Kamloops it was HOT and the locals were mentioning it.

I now know for certain that when I visit Lisa in Africa I will have to go in the rainy season. I do not do well in heat like this. A good portion of my body is covered in heat rash, also known as Prickly heat and I know why, it feels like someone is pricking me from the inside out with 100's of tiny pins. Not too much fun, but who wants to hear about the discomfort of heat rash when there is way more interesting and fun things to blog about.

We had a great time camping with several cousins from Royd's side of the family - 4 families in total -11 kids and 6 adults stayed the weekend. We also had visits from 5 other families who were either heading home after holidays or lived close enough to make it a day trip to come and hang out. It was good to see each of them. All of us saying that we NEED to do this again soon and get the word out further so we can have more cousins join us. It is good to reconnect, it is good to catch up, it is SO GOOD for our kids to meet in some cases for the first time that they can remember. They have seen each other so few times in their lives it is like meeting for the first time all over again.

Amazingly it does not take long for kids to overcome shyness and start pushing each other in the pool, laughing and scaring all "Non-relatives" out of the pool - they were VERY loud these Hilstad cousins. But I think it was the adults that laughed the hardest hearing Ron tell his story of his as advertised on radio "painless vasectomy" oh my, we were all in stitches. Great memories, laughs re connections it was good just to be together. Celebrating family and life.