BE TRUE TO YOURSELF

☺️👉Yup..Am bringing this here from another site I joined. I think that this is how we should conduct ourselves on any social websites we're on.☺️ Be yourself simply said means be your best good self. Because it matters⚘☺️

LET'S HEAR IT FROM DR. FAUCI. re Corona Virus

😯Oh ..oh.. this is a strong message. He ain't kidding. An excerpt from his long speech. Let’s hear it from our expert... Dr. Fauci.


 “👉For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity: How dare you?

👉👉How dare you risk the lives of others so cavalierly. How dare you decide for others that they should welcome exposure as "getting it over with", when literally no one knows who will be the lucky "mild symptoms" case, and who may fall ill and die. Because while we know that some people are more susceptible to suffering a more serious case, we also know that 20 and 30-year-olds have died, marathon runners and fitness nuts have died, children and infants have died.

👉👉How dare you behave as though you know more than medical experts, when those same experts acknowledge that there is so much we don't yet know, but with what we DO know, are smart enough to be scared of how easily this is spread, and recommend 👉baseline precautions such as:

Frequent hand-washing
Physical distancing
Reduced social/public contact or interaction
Mask wearing
Covering your cough or sneeze
Avoiding touching your face
Sanitizing frequently touched surfaces

 👉👉The more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure, the better off we all are, in my opinion. Not only does it flatten the curve and allow health care providers to maintain levels of service that aren't immediately and catastrophically overwhelmed; it also reduces unnecessary suffering and deaths, and buys time for the scientific community to study the virus in order to come to a more full understanding of the breadth of its impacts in both the short and long term.

 👉👉I reject the notion that it's 'just a virus' and we'll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless stance.” ........

 There you have it, folks. Dr. Fauci in his own words.

EVERYTHING SOONER OR LATER BRINGS A PERSON DOWN TO HIS KNEES

🤔Sometimes I'd wonder.....

 Gosh, why these many needs in life -- the need to be somebody, the need to be rich or successful, the need to be out there reaping applause and praise, the need to be powerful weilding influence or money, the need to be on top of things, the need to be loved? Plus the other basic needs of man. 

 Mom would simply shake her head and smile "You ask too many questions, Ellen. But those needs you speak of and more, both good and bad.. ultimately brings a person down to his knees." 

 Whatever we go through in life is there for a reason. Some things we understand... some things we don't. Yet it all touches our lives like rain falls down on creation sparing none. At times it creates chaos, uncertainty, grief, anger, hurt, pain, confusion, fear, loss, doubt. 

We stumble in search of answers to questions gnawing at our hearts and bashing our brains out. 

 No answers. 

 And .....mom was right - we come right back to HIM. He sorts things out and makes us see what we need to see.🙏

WORRY IS NOT A SOLUTION

I remember this from long ago: 

 👉"Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength."                        -- (Charles Spurgeon) 

 It's a person's nature to worry, he'll worry about something, anything, everything but he sure will worry. I should know cos am one of the thousands of worrywarts on this planet. But I do know one thing too -- you can't make things good or right by worrying. It won't make problems disappear either. It will instead make the burden seem heavier than it actually is.

Until I learned something that changed all that for me. Thanks to Mom who showed me its power as she dealt with the challenges in her life. Oh no, the problems didn't vanish into thin air. It doesn't work that way. Though it can and will if Someone up there says so.. but it won't most times for a reason.

Mom was a Supergirl to my eyes.. but her kryptonite was her armor of prayer. She took on every battle or challenge armed with a prayer. Brave, courageous, patient, steady under fire... she held on to her prayer.

I may not have undetstood how the answers to her prayer came (wondered as a young child back then) ... but that special look in her eyes told me she had her answers.

So.....try prayer. 🙏

THE UNIVERSE IS YOUR FRIEND

☺️Good morning, friends!

 The quote above is lifted from a book am reading, "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne. (Thanks to my daughter Malen) Great book. And...which I would suggest you get yourself a copy, too. Truly a gem of a book. With all the negativity surrounding us and in our lives, this book packs in a heavy dose of positivity. You'll come out of it smiling and with new resolve.☺️

LIFE IS THE WHOLE TAPESTRY OF YOU

🦋 Life is what happens to you day after day after day. Sometimes it has nothing to do with your dreams at all. Sometimes it's just the ordinary mundane events in a day or time spent with family, friends, and people. Sometimes it's simply sitting by the shore looking out to a beautiful sunset. Sometimes it's just being you in the moment playing with your dogs. Things which many of us consider a waste of time.

🦋 That is life. That is what happens to you while you are making plans for the future.. working hard to build your dream house.. planning your next masterpiece.. building your career.. planning something.

🦋 So what's my point?

🦋 Simple. Live life with open arms embracing everything that's in it. Not focusing only on those things which you think is worthwhile or perceive it to be. Life is more than that. It is all of that!

💕 Life is the whole tapestry of you. Savor the passage of time as it ticks koff in hours, days, weeks, months, years. Sing out every note in your life symphony. Dance to the beating of your own drum and not somebody else's. Reflect on the wonders of creation. Try to understand the heart of your God. And importantly, have a grateful heart for the miracle that is -- you! 💕

I FOUND MY GOLD

You know, I have something to say about age.☺️ Can you stay a minute?🤗

--- 😊Birthday month now gone ..yup all of 74 this year (thanking Someone Special up there for this lovely gift) ..but thoughts remain.. linger on. So I guess it's time again to sift through the grain and chaff to find my gold. Once more. The piece below was done about three or four years ago and I know quite long. But do bear with me on this one because I'm trying to find my gold.....🙂

LIFE GONE BY IN RETROSPECT

Here I am with lines creeping where I wouldn’t want them to (laugh lines I agree is a nice way to call them), a spreading middle which I hoped wouldn’t (three daughters gave me that. I wonder what other women’s five or six would!), silver streaks playing peek-a-boo out of once glorious dark tresses (my beautician has a solution to that quite expensively though), and a less than flat abdomen (next to laugh lines, this horror of horrors gives a woman’s age away) -- that surely makes me think.

I guess women who find they are blowing out 50 or more candles on their cake would consider those in serious retrospect. And looking at the youthful glowing skin, lithe figure, and silky black hair of gorgeous models on the cover of glossy woman magazines or ads serve only to feed that quiet unease. Come to think of it, we’ve always been told that – white pearly teeth, soft smooth skin, and skinny no-bulge bodies is beautiful. Like saying that only women of 20-year-olds-and-under inhabit the face of the earth and anything beyond that is absolutely unheard of and don't matter. Gaahh!

 But wait! look again. See these women in your ordinary everyday neighborhood? ---the middle-aged woman selling fish and vegetables in the market..... the government employee who sells beauty products on the side..... the ordinary housewife who does her chores with clockwork precision each day tending to a rowdy brood of five while a husband is away in Saudi..... the dependable single older aunt selflessly sending a niece or nephew to school..... the crisp ladies of the church in their equally crisp bland uniforms..... the rural teachers who patiently trod to their classrooms on gravel roads rain or shine. .

Well, these women are real -- as real as ice cream cones and pizza pies. They may do a hundred turns before the mirror tremulously tracing age’s progress on their faces and skin too, yet they don’t fuss and fret over beauty jars and trips to the gym, salon or spa. Instead, they get busy as mothers, wives, grandmothers, nieces, aunts, office mate, friend and other more roles laid out before them each day.

 Now here’s the million dollar question-- what if all that would be gone one day and truly it will-- when all that’s left is the so-called void without and within. When age finally creeps in as bones and joints go stiff and ache... when skin crinkle with defiant lines, eyes strain to read small print... when sleep turns erratic... when appetites change... and when visits to the doctor become more frequent... and pills nestle unwelcomed yet permanently in one’s purse. Or ...when loneliness glides into each day furthermore heightened with the children planning careers and lives away from home.

 Now what can they do with the portions left of their now solitary lives?

 Questions which dawned on me while I was sitting in my favorite corner one lazy afternoon with a book (that went stale in my hands). A book, to my mind, should pass the first five minutes of reading with flying colors. Otherwise it goes down to the bin of the lost and forgotten.

Anyway, I realized this --

🌹That life does not stand still for those who enter through this portal. No, it does not. But one does have to make a choice-- to move along in step with the passing of father time— or fall back and be left behind. With the same eyes, ears, mind and heart honed by past experiences, one can still better see life and the world with fresh new interest, appreciation, understanding, and wisdom. Born out of hurts, pains, bruises and bumps from a journey through life’s dusty and more often grueling road, but one now wears a new sense of independence, confidence, and self-worth. There can be no void where one does not allow it.

🌹🌹This journey continues. It’s a lifelong one. I do look back often to see what’s gone past or what’s left behind. I do this to appreciate where I am at now. The past, cruel in some and brilliant in another, created my passions, desires, expectations putting it all together in one package that people see, interact with, and relate to each day. I am able to give back to life because life has filled me well.

🌹🌹🌹It’s a continuous play and exchange of receiving and giving in this real game called life. At times I can dish out master strokes thereby bask in euphoric victory. Then again in the next instant I hit the gutter with my poor aim and find myself pulling at my hair in utter disbelief, disappointment and frustration. Success and failure, bitter and sweet, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, smart and stupid, joy and sadness, high and low, have and have-not --- one will often find himself at one end or the other of that broad spectrum. It is a rich life, though definitely flawed and imperfect but rich. Yet it is what goes on inside a person that lends to its richness.

🌹🌹🌹🌹Yes, we are part and parcel of this universal ebb and flow of life. I uniquely as an individual fill my own allotted space in this vast universe and time — and so do zillions of other lives in their respective places. There is no secret to living this life. It’s simply keeping in step with the beating of the universal drum --- to the music played by the ONE magnificent drummer.

 Ah yes! Life indeed is beautiful 50 (or 74) birthday candles notwithstanding! My cup overflows. Thank you, Lord. . God bless you, folks! Remember... It's the precious moments which fill up memories.🌳 Precious!

 Hey, thanks for reading. Yes, I've found my gold😍 God bless you!


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DON'T WAIT LONGER TO SAY ' I LOVE YOU '

🥰Gorgeous, isn't it!? Youngest daughter surprised me with that beauty this morning. Nope, no occasion. Actually .. I know my girls; they need no occasion to do things like that. You know what else, the house reverberates with the words "I love you!" ..any time of day or night! My youngest daughter makes sure of that. 💕

Here's the message I want to throw out there to the world:

 Don't wait for a better..appropriate..proper.. moment, occasion, or time to say "I love you" to the people who matter in your life. Say it... let them hear it... show it. Now.. not later, not tomorrow, not on a birthday, not on Christmas or Valentine's Day, not only when you're inclined to or in the mood for it. 💕

Do it now.. because sometimes life plays its silly tricks on us and takes away the very or only chance we may get to do it. Then.... it becomes too late. 💕

God bless you and your loved ones. 🌷💕🌷💕🌷