Hello!  I think I am finally through with this really nasty three-going on four-week bug that I've been battling.  My husband and I spent the entire weekend from Friday afternoon until bedtime on Sunday on the sofa in our family room, fireplace going, afghans bundled around us, and each clutching our own inhalers, antibiotics and precious boxes of Kleenex (the kind with aloe on it, to pamper our very sore noses!).  I think the enforced rest, spent sipping tea and watching countless episodes of Love It or List It on HGTV paid off, as we were both able to put in a full day's work yesterday and I even felt well enough after working all day to venture downstairs to the basement computer to write this post.

We had yet another snowstorm yesterday, and I'm beginning to be truly sick of winter and all the snow.  So I thought I'd jump back in the blogging world with a few pictures that have nothing to do with snowbanks, and a poem that always perks up my spirits.  I hope you enjoy this lovely poem by Mary Oliver and then let's all figure out a way to lose ourselves in joy today!

Mindful

Everyday

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light

It was what I was born for —

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world —

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant —

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these —

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?