New Life

                    Hello there my dear Bloggy buds and Insta pals,

OK, I'm only assuming that a whole hoard of people are reading this blog. Wishful thinking really... I don't really check the stats.

But even if it's one person...that's OK. So it's just you and me Dear One.


It's Good Friday and I have always felt a bit sad on this day. I tend to think a lot about how it must have been to be there at the crucifixion. What was it like to Love Him so and see Him suffer so much? Sometimes it brings me to tears.

It's been a dreary day here and it fits the mood. I finally threw out the flowers from my Father-in-law's wake, though one arrangement was still so beautiful. 
        
                                                   

I had a hard time throwing it out. I just didn't want to. I took it apart taking the almost perfect roses and placing them on the table. I was trying to figure out what I could do with them. What could I make with them?

and the answer is...

I will not keep them

I took a picture of the dried wilted flowers and I will admire them for a little while and then I will crush them and scatter them outside. They will become part of the backyard and when our annuals come up I will imagine that these flowers became part of the soil that helped them grow. I've learned not to keep everything...It helps to let go. Because by letting go something beautiful may happen.

New life

A new beginning

Life from something thought completely dead

Reminds me of Easter

And that my dear friend makes me smile

Hope it made you smile too

Blessings, Joanne

Getting Ready for the Week Ahead

                   As I write this post...it is Sunday. It was a beautiful day here today. It was sunny and in the 40's. Lately instead of going straight home after church I go straight to Aldis (discount grocery store) to buy some groceries and snacks for the week. You can't beat their prices for chips...while the regular supermarkets are charging over 4 dollars for a bag, Aldis  is charging 1.79. Its a no brainer. After lunch I usually sit down to work on my planner. I also plan what needs to be cleaned that week. I try to plan what I will be cooking for dinner too. Now that Easter is a week away the cleaning routine will have to be taken up a notch in case I have company.  It might look a bit like this.....


                                     Uploaded to You Tube by:  Chris Fleming             
                    
                                                It makes me laugh every time


What are you up to today? What do you do to get ready for the week? or for company?




         

Timer Cleaning

                     Sometimes in life we are just plain EXHAUSTED.

                                               
                                                                 source                   


        I'm talkin' BONE TIRED

                     
                                           source 


                            and sometimes it lasts for a long time. 

                                      

I have some friends who suffer from chronic illnesses and yet a few more who live with the long term after-effects of Chemo. 

They try to keep organized.

They work hard at it.

The Fly lady says that all that is needed is 15 minutes a day.

Jen, from How Jen Does It says the same thing

Jen's home is beautiful

I'm not there yet.

 I am a breast cancer survivor and when I had my surgery I was left grateful to be alive, but also surprised that I couldn't do what I did so easily before. My dominant arm and hand were weaker than my non-dominant side. I dropped things repeatedly. My husband helped tremendously, but I wanted to feel normal again and that meant being able to care for my family. Eventually I started to figure a way to get started. Last year's arthritis appeared and it has made things difficult...not impossible. If medical issues or limited mobility make you not able to do things for more than a few minutes without getting tired, I may have something for you to try that may help.

Get a timer or use your phone or oven timer. Bring with you a small waste basket or garbage bag to throw out stuff immediately without having to walk to the trash can constantly.

Set the timer for 5 minutes.
Start on one side of the room and go clockwise. Going clockwise will stop you from getting overwhelmed and when you come back to the area you will know exactly where you left off. Pick a small area. I usually start at a counter and pick about two or three feet of it. Everything in that two feet will be put away and wiped. This includes the area above it. In 5 minutes that two foot area will be clean. When the timer goes off, set it for 5 or 10 minutes and sit, or watch tv or read. 

The purpose for this is so you don't get exhausted. This might sound silly or extreme for a person who is healthy and has all the energy in the world, but if you are someone suffering from an illness that makes it so hard to do things for a long period of time ...this could help.

After the five or ten minutes are up, set the timer for 5 minutes again and go to the next area.

What if you don't want to concentrate on just that room and want to clean a bit in other places too?

Thats ok, Make the circle wider to include a few rooms or the whole house. 

Work five minutes in the bedroom....then rest. Work another 5 minutes in the bathroom, then rest. Do a full circle and if you have energy and time go back to where you started and do another round.

The objective is not to get everything done. The objective to to do as much as you can without exhaustion. You will find that if you have a an incentive... A good movie or book or even a magazine to go back to when you finish those minutes of cleaning, it will help keep your motivation up.

If resting for 5 minutes isn't enough then make it 10 or 15. Just don't make it for too much because you'll get too comfy cozy with that book or show and want to turn of the timer for good. But if you need more time then take more!

You will find that maybe you didn't get to everything, but you did get to some. For someone who is having trouble with low energy and feeling badly about this new stage in your life, being able to finish something and not feel exhausted and defeated is a very big deal! Even if it's taken you an hour just to do the dishes or just a small section of the kitchen...YOU DID IT!

This helped me and so I really hope it helps you. Let me know.

Have a beautiful day and take care of yourself!

Blessings, Joanne

Loss and Comfort

                Sometimes things happen that flips your world upside down. This happened this past week. Early Monday morning my Father-in-law died. He was in the hospital for a month and a half. On Sunday morning it seemed that he was feeling better and looking stronger, but that boost of energy was not to last. That night his three sons gathered around his bedside and prayed over their father. My Father-in-law was in so much pain. God answered by taking him home.

Its been a surreal week. It was like walking in slow motion one minute then lightning speed the next. There were so many people to greet and there was my poor almost 90-year-old Mother -in -law right in the middle of it. Anything "routine" went right out the window as we helped pick flowers and bought appropriate clothes for our kids to wear. There was no cooking and very little cleaning. My kids walked around with heavy hearts and my sister-in-laws and I helped our Husbands as they dealt with the loss of their father.

The kids lost time at school.

         Shopping was not done.
 
                Cleaning anything was last and not really done. The only chore I managed to do was one small load of laundry.

I did notice one thing. My Mother-in-law's house was tidy and clean as always. She has help these days but even so everything at her home was just as it always is. It was comforting to go there after the wake.

At the end of the night we would all go back to our own homes to prepare for the next day at the funeral home and there was my house in the same state that I left it in that morning.

It was not comforting.


There was the laundry that was left on the laundry room floor as I frantically searched for a black sweater to wash late the night before.

The vacuum was still in the middle of the living room and the craft room still had tons of silk flowers that were never put away from the centerpieces that I made just days before.

Those things mean nothing to me in lieu of the loss of a loved member of our family, but all together in front of us as we came home to try to recoup from the day's events...they meant so much. Having had a organized house to come home to would have felt comforting.

The funeral was just a few days ago and afterward the tradition is to go out for dinner with close family. I sat across from my sister-in-law and I noticed she was just as quiet as I was. The chatter around us was constant, but we said little. She looked tired and I imagine I looked the same. We knew this man for nearly 30 years. It hurts to say goodbye. We will miss him.

As we go back to our routines and try to help our Mother-in-law I start again trying to make sense of my world here.

As changes good and bad continue to bombard us day by day I do have the control of one aspect of it. I can make my little corner of the world a place of peace and love for my family and anyone who happens to come by.

                                      I can and I will