Quarters in my pocket

Hey - despite my terrible picture taking skills - can't you just tell that this is going to be a cute little purse? It's just tiny, for coins, maybe a lipstick. I love it more everytime I look at it.

So getting this little cutie sewn up was on my To-Do list yesterday. And, it's still not done. It might get done this weekend, along with....Tada....

Weekend To-Do List

• Finish up bejeweled - hairpieces
• Mail bejeweled She's not really quite mailed, but she's all packed to go, closer to the swap date
• Finish up flower child dotee and Dana Dotee and mail More on this next week!
• Embroider apron and sew together - Man, that's a lot more time consuming than it looked! But I am enjoying this and look forward to doing more on this project next week.
• Clean up bird cages! (now that they have food, they deserve clean!) Soon babies, I promise, this week!
• Laundry (UGH!) I couldn't avoid this one
• Water plants
• PCC for Smoothies ala Crazy Aunt Purl Blueberry Bliss
• Groceries - what have I been eating???
• Finish up the coin purse - It's not completely done, but I'm betting it will be Monday evening. It's soooo cute!

Doesn't seem like much, does it? I'm hoping to get out and about some too - I'd like to go to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop this weekend to pick up a chain for a necklace which my mother left to me. And, I'd like to take a walk. Yes, I'd really like to take a walk. How much do you think I'll feel like that after the dentist does the prep work for my crown this afternoon? I'm betting that I just read all weekend and get none of this stuff done! I'm working on Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, The Knitting Club and starting Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now..

I hope you have a fabulous weekend. I'm saving 5 Good things for after the dentist - about when I'm going to need to be thinking of good things I think.

Wellness Wednesday

I feel a bit like I've been cheating on Wellness Wednesday posts. How many Wednesdays did I miss? Ummmmmm a few. But despite missing posts, Wellness Wednesday has been very meaningful to me.

I've been reading several books simultaneously - among them the much touted Tolle book and a few others, including ODAT materials (I'm leaving that a little coded on purpose) and I'm learing, or re-learning many things. The most important, at this moment is, "Be here Now." I think I'll never outgrow this phrase and I'm grateful to the Teacher, Ram Dass, for transmitting this simple code....Be here, right here...there's really no where else to be.

Tolle repeats this missive, and explains it in several different ways, and invites the reader into deeper places - sometimes I live in those places, sometimes I imagine them, and other times I remember that once I lived in those places. But after all is said and done, "Be here now" is all there is. Be in this moment, relish this moment, wallow in the PURPOSE of this moment.

And, what is the purpose of this moment? This is my favorite part of the Tolle book, though I'm sure there are more profound lessons......the purpose of this moment is .....

THIS MOMENT

(okay, I'm paraphrasing but that's my understanding of it.) If one is sewing, the purpose of the moment is to sew...NOT to complete a garment, or a quilt, a present, a task or a job - the purpose is to sew. How....how much of life's worries and tulmults disappear if you really wallow in the moment? (Or! be here now!) Think about this - FEEL this...(I have been!) If I accept this moment....such beauty burns into me, puts me on fire and somehow, I am less tired, I am more deeply at peace, I am ALIVE. One stitch...one stitch...is it perfect? Ummm it is a stitch, and now another....Yes, they are both perfect.

These things make me think of something I remember reading a million years ago (sok, I can be there old because only this moment matters and besides, wherever you go....there you are!)...by Alexander Solzenitzen. (yes, I really read it, my freshman year in High School.) Solzenitzen is speaking of the unspeakable torture and evil of the gulag. And so, the reader wonders, how does a human live through that??!?!?! And he answers with much the same answers above....be in the moment, each moment, taken by itself is manageable. Solzenitzen says that when aware of each moment there is incredible realization that everything which is needed is provided. Wow...that's stayed with me since High school; each moment, in the midst of what seems like unbearable pain (Tolle would say, I think, the ego percieves and nurtures the pain) is entirely livable. If Solzenitzen can live through the gulag, and forgive and love his captors - surely the small little details of my life can be accepted.

Which brings us back to Tolle...acceptance, he says, is tranformative. Be here now, accept that you are here now.... Accept. I wish I could put words to how just repeating the word makes me feel, "accept...accept." It has become sort of a mantra for me, and I repeat it constantly...."Accept." Accept and submit to the moment, for it too shall pass...such freedom.

So..what's this got to do with Wellness Wednesday? I've been working on it. I've been breathing into the moment, filling myself with NOW and accepting now - even the rotten Nows and I'm finding that in the middle of the rotten, wonderful, glorious and damnable nows, there is something constant....I think the Watcher, the Witness, the I AM...that part of me which just is, which is at peace, which embodies equanimity.

I haven't magically lost a bunch of weight, I have not escaped the chronic pain of fibromyalgia and my relationships are not perfect - but in the middle of all that imperfection, in each moment, in each now, it is absolutely perfect.