The more I read....

....the more in awe I am of how I choose books (or books choose me) at just the right times in my life.

Today's quote that went straight to my heart:

"Every time I thought that I was 'put together,' I realized that we're always putting ourselves together, gathering the world in, letting it sift down and form us."
(Calla Lily Ponder, herione of my current Kindle book)

An unexpected visitor

Spring and winter are absolutely hanging out together at the moment. I'm trying to think of it in nice terms, it doesn't feel like they are fighting each other, but rather playing together, each taking short turns making their appearance. Even with the ever increasing sunlight, the choirs of birds and the unmistakeable smell of spring in the air, yesterday it snowed again. This added just enough snow to the many centimeters already on the ground, that the fence separating our yard from the neighbors is now completely buried. Thus, we have a temporary visitor, the neighbor's German shepard now lives in our yard as well. :)




The pictures don't really do justice to the mountain of snow, but in the photos, he is literally laying on top of fence. The good news is, hopefully there will be no more neighborhood cats peeing on our front door trying to get Mima's attention, now that dog smell is all about. The bad news is he found several plastic flower pots in our backyard (I think they were on our back mini-porch) and destroyed them all over our backyard.

And Mims also wants her fifteen minutes of fame, so here is a bit of photo evidence of her latest hobby: alternating between loving and attempting to kill her catnip lion, her Christmas present from her family in the US.

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

This is the yearly post in which I can officially announce that the sun has come back to us! The days have been noticeably lighter and lighter for a while now (that's what happens when you gain sunlight at the amazing rate of an extra four and a half minutes a day), and today I left the house for the train at a few minutes to 6am with a band of light on the horizon and when I got home at quarter to 7 the sun was just on it's way down in a beautiful sunset. Hooray! Nevermind that we still have centimeters upon centimeters of snow on the ground (not particularly in any hurry to melt), the sky has been blue for six days in a row now and the smell of spring was unmistakeably in the air. It's like reuniting with an old friend. :)

31, a tough pill to swallow

Fascinating. I was looking back through some of my posts from last spring (mainly looking for a quote about spring that I wasn't sure if I had already posted) and re-read last year's birthday post. I now have a theory. I don't do well with birthdays that have to do with the number 13. Last year's post outlined my difficulties with my 13th birthday and my 26th birthday (double 13). This year's birthday (the REVERSE of 13) was another one that will go down in the books as traumatic in the reflective department.

This is the first birthday where my number makes me feel old. Yes, I know, age is just a number, and I've always been more or less ok with the numbers (strangely minus the years that relate to 13, I am discovering)... I always get comments that I don't look my age, so as the numbers have gone up, I've always been able to "feel" young regardless. 30 was still an ok year for me - I guess because although there were things I had envisioned for myself by 30, it was still my 30th year so I still had time to make it happen. But now that this year has come and gone, I have a bit of reconciling to do with why certain goals are not met. This is the first moment in my life I've really come across this feeling of an actual possibility of running out of time in life.

In a way, moments like this are good, they put fire under you to keep your goals and dreams fresh. However, at the same time, it's a reminder to slow down and enjoy what you have and trust that everything else will work itself out. Thus also the quote about spring I was looking for.... I couldn't find the one I was actually looking for, but the idea is quite close to this:

"No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn."

Be patient. Be happy in the moment you have. Trust that everything will come to you in the right moment. Even if you think you know exactly when that right moment is (because quite frankly in my opinion, spring should be making it's entrance now!), the earth has bigger plans and it knows what's best. Spring will not forget about you.....be patient.

I think the quote I was looking for referred to the sun and the moon, and the seasons as well - they don't hurry each other along, they give each other their time and patiently arrive when it is their turn.

So, just as I can't dictate that spring will arrive on March 21, even if the calendar says so, I suppose I can't dictate certain goals just because my birthday calendar says so. I'll follow the lead of the sun/moon and the seasons, and my goal for this year is patience and appreciation for the moment.