We are all a part of it...

This beautiful song and lyric that was on

Kind Over Matter

today

and inspired this journal page :

And this beautiful rock found on the beach at Hampton on this fine

summer-like spring day

inspired these nice photos of its finder...

and

one of her treasures,

a silver hand found in Mexico.

Heart in hand...

I know

that

I am

part

of

something

beautiful.

Happy Tuesday, Beautiful Ones.

Random Acts of Kindness Week

While reading one of my most favorite blogs in Blogland this morning,

Kind Over Matter,

I discovered that it is

Random Act Of Kindness Week !

The girls at Kind over Matter, Jenn and Amanda have a whole list of suggestions

for acts you can carry out and make the world a little kinder place.

(laughing buddha photo from flick'r)

One of my favorites is so very simple and it is one I learned from my Bubbie, my grandmother, when I was a little kid.

Bubbie would smile at everyone she met every day.

Simple, isn't it ?

And yet it is often rare these days....so sad.

What a difference it makes in your day when you share a smile with someone else a couple of times.

They are of course, contagious.

They are also free.

I have some new neighbors who just moved in across the street. I think I will make one of my acts of kindness this week to go over and introduce myself and maybe bring a some little goodies over. They used to do that all they time, you know, when someone joined a neighborhood. I think I am going to do my little part to bring the kindness back on my street...

As I was looking through my pics to find something for this post, I came across this picture of my mom and me last September. Don't you love it ?

It made me smile big and made my heart fill up with the love I have for my Sweet Mommy and also for our relationship.

Hmmmm...there is some nice fuel to get my kindness fires going...

Let's head out and go act kind !!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news...

I think I am experiencing information/Blogland/inspiration/Facebook/typing/computer screen overload. I realize that I have been spending way too much time in front of the computer these days. It feels like my play time in the studio has become what I do in between reading blogs or Facebook or emails and not the other way around which is what I would greatly prefer.

I do love Blogland and my friends and our connections so very much, but I don't want it to become the only thing I spend my time doing !!! I miss art journaling. I miss creating new things. I have been squeezing those things in here or there between visits on the computer but now it is time for a change.

While I will not disappear completely, I think I will go on a BlogLand and Facebook Slow Down for a good while. At least the next month or so.

My biggest challenge will be disciplining myself to keep my time on the computer at a minimum. I am thinking a timer or something at first.

So while I don't know exactly what this will look like or feel like, I am making my intention for myself known.

I send you Beautiful, Beautiful Ones lots of love and...

I guess I will see you when I see you...

Off to do some Mindful Living....

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

No really I am going now...

bye... ;)

Let Life Flow...

Going

today.

Trying to

Thankful, always for friends, old and new,

(Chica and Baron from my walk with my friend Colleen)

and art, especially art that comes from the heart .

( My ATC for Kind over Matter Blogaversary Swap).

Time to love on myself a little bit.

Giving out love,

and prayers,

and focusing on the "details in the fabric"

takes a lot of energy,

doesn't it ?

Going to cherish myself so I have more to give out...

We tend to think being hard on

ourselves will make us strong.

But it is cherishing ourselves

that gives us strength.
- Julia Cameron

and keep on remembering that

giving yourself

Happy Friday, Beautiful Ones. Go give yourself some loving now !

Be kind...be kind...be kind...

First off, I would love to thank Olivia at happy luau for awarding me with the One Lovely Blog Award. Showing appreciation for the content and the message of blogs you love is a beautiful thing, through comments, through these awards and through mentioning some special stuff going in your own posts. So much Blogland Love ! Yay !

As a recipient of this award, I am supposed to list 6 things that are making me really happy right now, so here goes :

1. my family & friends and the lovey-dovey love I share with them

2. my furry animals - so cozy and sweet...though if they had a little less hair right now that would be okay by me !

3. my meditation practice...takes work to tone that muscle but man, it brings you good stuff !

4. more light in the evenings which means longer days, more time for socializing, for doing fun stuff, for enjoying life - I know the day has the same amount of hours in it but that extra light makes it seem like more time.

5. boring t.v. which makes it easier to turn it off and do something more meaningful and enriching- like read a book or make some art or play cribbage with my hubby !

6. giving out little gifts of love to the universe and feeling them come back a hundred fold...

I have a really hard time singling out recipients for awards - maybe I try and be too PC about it and worry that someone will feel left out. I have decided today to wimp out and award the Lovely Blog Award to all of Blogland - to blogger sharing themselves and their loveliness bravely and openly with all of us ! Consider yourself awarded !

Speaking of giving and receiving gifts, I wanted to share a recent lovely Blogland find of mine.

The sweet and oh so inspiring blog called kind over matter run by Amanda and Jen.

Their whole raison d'etre is to spread love and kindness. What could be better ? They post photos and inspiring quotes multiple times a day. They provide a place for people to share their acts of kindness to encourage others. They even advertise for free for blogland artists who are spreading kindness through their work. It is an awesome site !

These sweet chicks also provided a series of kindness quotation cards in PDF format and encouraged readers to document how they have used the cards and link back to them. That is what I decided to do yesterday.

Had to get rid of the grey rainy blahs somehow...sprinkle some colorful love on it seemed like the perfect solution...

I copied the cards, cut them out and then went to Color Town decorating some tags with little collages connected to the quotes (8 in all). I added some ribbons in rainbow colors and here's what I had :

see the sweet cards that Amanda and Jen made available on the tags ? (click to enlarge)

The kind over matter gals suggest leaving the extra bits of kindness cards wherever you feel like people could need it. I decided to bring the tags with me to meditation last night and give them as gifts the the ladies in the class.

I took pictures of the tags by the Buddha in the meditation room as my "proof".

The girls at the class really loved the tags. Each one of the 5 ladies present chose one based on the color that felt right for them.

And as for the Buddha,

I think he approved...don't you ?

I hope you get a little and give a little extra kindness today ! Happy Tuesday !