Dear Reader:

I came across this little cartoon picture in a magazine I was reading before getting my bone density test done Friday and initially it just made me smile.

Friday night…later, as I was drifting off to sleep, I thought about the message again and started giving it more consideration.

When I think back to the days of teaching when the children were still all at home…it truly is a blur. I remember that the greatest gift of all came from friends and family when they would take the children to come play. They gave me time…to be alone. I physically and emotionally craved it at certain intervals.

And I was so lucky to have the Dingle family helping me out by having the kids over to their different homes for different occasions! Bless your hearts!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I remember telling another teacher one afternoon that teaching was the easiest part of the job…my day really didn’t start until after school…dropping the kids off at different baseball fields or football fields, as well as, picking up and dropping off Mandy for dance and later volleyball and all other kinds of activities she was engrossed in ….while at middle school and high school.

Thank goodness all my children were sleepers like me and when we came across a “Sacred Saturday” as I called them with no practices or games or places we had to be…it was the closest thing to heaven I got.

We would all sleep in and then I would run pick up biscuits or burgers (if we slept past breakfast) and watch cartoons with the kids…putting off the weekly cleaning chores until afternoon.

Oddly enough these are some of my fondest memories…doing nothing with the kids on a Saturday morning. Simplify!

These days I never hit the “snooze” button on life because I don’t want to waste a minute of it. I am so excited about going to the garden to check and see what new bloom is going to surprise me. Or taking a walk around the neighborhood to see, hear, and listen to nature at its best. Or meet friends for breakfast or lunch. Life is too short to “snooze”past it.

Welcome the garden’s latest addition…butterflies love these plants…Stokesia or (as Doodle told me…thanks again master gardener) Stoke’s aster. I want to see lots and lots of butterflies in the garden!

Friday I showed you a picture of the morning glory vines growing along the side fence….yesterday morning I woke up to the same scene…but…now covered with purple morning glory blooms...it was if the flowers rested during the night and pop, pop, pop they, too were ready for a new day… blooming in all their glory!

This photo was taken Saturday morning while watering all the plants…these are my day lilies lined up along the side of the house. They are between blooms…buds but no blooms. I have, no doubt within the next two days they will all be blooming again…so much to look forward to in life!

I had to take my potted plant off the hanging green chair because the morning glory vines have just about reached it and soon will cover the chair with purple and periwinkle blooms…it will be so beautiful.

Simplify the walls…how easy it is to simplify our wall hangings/ artwork when you are blessed to be surrounded by family/friend artists. (Mandy, Joan, and Anne) Why ever buy another painting ?

Nothing any store or art gallery had in it… could come close to what I feel when I can picture the artists who created these objects of great beauty.

I am happy to see that it isn’t just me who wants to simplify my life so I can enjoy it to the fullest each day. There are whole movements of people wishing to do this. For example:

On P. Allen Smith’s Saturday morning show on PBS…he had an Italian guest who was explaining the Slow Food movement that has spread to over 150 countries. The idea behind the movement is to grow and live off the crops that are seasonal throughout the year…. eating nothing synthetic to prolong growing periods but learning how to be creative within nature’s natural time-table of growth.

Slow Food, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting food enjoyment, biodiversity and sustainability, was founded in Piedmont, Italy in 1989. Carlo Petrini, an editor, writer and intellectual, took action in response to the first McDonald’s restaurant opening in Rome. The grassroots association has since blossomed into a global movement that spans 150 countries and counts 100,000 members.

Simplifying our meals is just one way to slow down our lives while eating healthier. I haven’t gotten brave enough to seriously contemplate adding a vegetable garden yet…the flower garden consumes a large chunk of time…especially in the spring and summer seasons.

But maybe….just maybe…one year I will bravely add vegetables to it.

I even simplified my car by putting the name sticker decal Sis Kinney sent me awhile back on my car…I cut off the Boone, NC part of the decal and only left “Boo.” So from now on…if you see a “Boo” in front of you…wave and beep!

As Mollie’s maternity leave is quickly winding down…she decided to spend it with Rutledge in a giraffe pool in the front yard…life when lived simply…is at its best…and remembered the longest.