Today I am grateful that...

1. The sun is shining.
2. I get to see my DD, DSnL, Repeat and Shortie everyday
3. I know my way to and from work without the GPS
4. A friend said he is proud of my risky, courageous move
5. I spoke with my BFF for over an hour uninterrupted!
6. I'm driving to see a friend from school this weekend!
7. I worked all day in the garden on Saturday
8. I have plants in my office
9. The baby will be here soon!
10. Repeat included me in his family "flower".
11. Shortie tells me about his day.
12. I am happy!!
13. I am loved!

Wiser on Wednesday - strength and courage

Strength and courage aren't always measured in medals and victories.

They are measured in the struggles they overcome.

The strongest people aren't always the people who win,

but the people who don't give up when they lose.

Ashley Hodgeson

Wiser on Wednesday - miscellaneous qoutes

• He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg. - Chinese Proverb
• I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. - Martin Luther King Jr. (US clergyman and civil rights leader 1929-1968)
• Show me your friend and I will show you your character (in Akan kyereme woadamfo na menkyere wo wosuban.) - Kwaku Boateng
• "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." —Margaret Mead
• If you fail to plan , you will plan to fail - Kolawole Kayode
• With the people, for the people, by the people, I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, 'cause that's what really happens. - Fannie Lou Hamer (U.S. civil rights activist, 1917-1977)
• The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves - Willian Hazlitt (English essayist, 1778-1830)
• If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. - Chinese Proverb
• We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. - Gwendolyn Brooks

Id' rather be...gardening

With the apparent (you can't tell by today) onset of spring my heart goes to my first hobby love...gardening. Choosing plants and flowers, digging, arranging, mulching, sitting back admiring, talking with others, watching and pointing out new growth...each have separate and priceless allures.
Despite the fact that I have recently moved (actually I'm still unpacking boxes) I watch the garden in front of the house, keep track of the sun and shade and where they stay the longest, and wonder if Repeat and Shortie would enjoy planting seeds with me.
You can't image how pleased I was when my dear SNL asked me about placing some hosta in the front of the house! We discussed whether there was too much sun there for too long and if so what else we'd enjoy there. He said he might go plant "looking" one day soon. Outwardly I tried to let him know I was interested in going without being too mother-in-law-ish. "If you don't mind...I'd love to go." pleeease! inside my brain was screaming "take me with you! I want to play!" I hope we go soon. I'd really like sharing this first love with him.

When I grow up ...

...I certainly don't want to be an old woman. My DD hums this tune* as she moves around the house. It is quite catchy. When I grow I want to be an old woman. Old, old, old, old woman... She of course can sing this mindlessly, she is nowhere near old with two and half children! She can sing the song for its catchiness and not thing of the larger and annoying implications.

Believe me I get the point of the commercial. Growing up involves growing old, and growing old involves surviving preventable disease. I get it! But none of those old women look like me. Not just because they're not African American but because they're ...well...they're old! Even though they look spry. I will bet money I don't have that "spry" is only used in reference to people who are considered old.

Recently I realized that I was just four - four I say - years shy of the age that as a child I thought was ancient/near death. Really, it was recent - like last week. I mean I have been counting (even though not sharing) my years on this earth. But somehow it alluded me that I was approaching the "ancient/near death age". Now what? I'm not hardly ancient. I'm not hardly old. I still turn a head or two (never mind that the heads I turn happen to be a lot older than they used to be! sigh)

At the risk of sounding like an old woman... where exactly did the time go?

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVR3EiwSgwI