2 Days to Ringing In the New Year!

Come on in out of the wind and sit a spell.  It's supposed to be in the low 70's today.  Woo Hoo!

On January 1, 2011 at 12:01am you can toss this year's calendar.  No doubt it is has served you well, but it is virtually worthless now that 2010 has run it's course.  Gotta get all my birthdays and special events entered ... I live by that crazy day timer!

While this year's days and weeks may be history, the steps of growth I have taken are my legacy.  My priorities have changed, my attitude towards people and life has improved, and my handicaps are less frightening.  I've learned to be faithful and fruitful in my life ... to do the best I can ... and, to be on call when needed.

Is life the way I want it to be?  Absolutely not ... I have learned to be content with where I am yet always moving forward.  I take nothing for granted!  I tell my story from my own point of view and take responsibility for my choices.  Oh, some of the consequences have had sharp edges and I wondered at times if I could go one step forward ... then, I did take that next step.  I have spent so many years being the perfect everything to everyone until one day it just clicked ... I am one person on this road of life with no map or directions.  I am a work in progress and that is OK.

I have thought a lot about the little casa the past few days.  I have missed spending time there and visiting with Mom S.  Our little get a way was almost finished when a fluke of a cracked water pipe set the renovations back a couple months.  The kitchen cabinets are now in and Lupe and his worker bees are hard at work doing the water damage repairs and prepping for the cabinets.  We are so fortunate ... the original wood floors have survived another deep sanding!  Yea!  This project has taught me a lot about patience and even more about dealing honestly with people.  Sometimes, in life, we just have to start over!

My garden is alive with Winter color.  I'm always sad when the trees lose their leaves and the gardens look so barren.  I decided to do a little research on shrubs that offer Winter color and planted a few.  So far so good...

As I gaze at my garden I love to "wool gather."  I was talking with someone the other day and we were discussing sincerity. "Perhaps you've heard about the man who took what he sincerely thought was aspirin.  Unfortunately, he was sincerely wrong and he became sincerely dead." (From The Daily Walk Bible)  So many of us do or say something with sincerity only to find out that we were wrong.  What then?  Do we blame, cover up, make excuses?  Sorry to say, I've been guilty of all of the above.  Actions can be sincere  but when they were sincerely wrong, they're still wrong.  I am grateful that I believe in a God of second chances and have learned to stand up, knees shaking, and say, "I'm sorry."  Sometimes, it's received and sometimes it hasn't been.  But...in doing my part, I can rest in peace.  My conscience works overtime you know!!  Throw back from my days of having to be that perfect little girl ... Perfectness is OUT THE DOOR for me in 2011.

God made me a free spirit with a love for people ... all kinds of people.  My mother was afraid of black people and sometimes I would cringe when she spoke so hatefully of them.  I think because there were so few African Americans where she (and myself as well) grew up that they were just different.  When I left home at 17, I was introduced to a world of different ethnic groups and grew to love them all.  In fact, my nickname of Dottie was given to be by a Hispanic lady that I worked with at the hospital in Arizona.  She taught me to like Mexican food (we cooked tortillas in the autoclaves!) and her faith was so amazing to me.  So many of the people who worked at the hospital were Hispanic or Indian and so gracious to a gringo from the north country.  I was way too skinny for them and they were always trying to fatten me up.  My daughter was born on the shift that I worked and, oh my goodness, did she ever get a welcoming party.  As much as I thought that Yuma, Arizona was the armpit of the world, I was sad to leave there in 1968.  Why?  I was so loved there!

As this year comes to a close is there some love you need to spread around?  It only takes a minute to send a card, make a phone call or give someone a smile and hug.  I will end this year with:

"May God who gives patience, steadiness, and encouragement help you to live in complete harmony with each other  -- each with the attitude of Christ toward the other.  And then all of us can praise the Lord together with one voice, giving glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."~~Romans 15:5-6

I will be getting ready tomorrow for the post Christmas/New Years pajama party here on New Year's Day...  What a great way to start the New Year ... Family and a whole lot of love!!  I am signing off for this year and looking forward to next years challenges and gifts!

Happy New Year to all of you who have followed my blog so faithfully.  Keep tuned ... let's take on life together!  Oh yes, how could I forget???  You are loved and prayed for ... YA YOU!

            



Happy New Year from my Texas grandkids ...
 Nicholas, Brittany, Ryan, and Zachary!!
What a blessing & inspiration
they are to me!!