The Kindest Man I Know

Month of Love: Day 29


Love from me always returns to him.
My husband, my dreamer, my scientist,
the man who dares to point me to the future.
Dale

I love being my husband's wife.
~ Julianna Margulies

Daughters

Month of Love: Day 28

We mothers of grown-up daughters
tend to view them
with a mixture of love, exasperation,
irritation and awe. 

~ Anne Robinson

Upside Down & Fully Alive

Month of Love: Day 27

Oscar Wilde turned the world upside down
and was able to laugh at it,
and hopefully by the time I'm 120
and worn out,
that's what I will achieve.
I love being alive so much.

~ John Lydon

Color and Imagination

Month of love: Day 26

For me, the love is with coloring and podcasts that helps the meditation.

I love audio books,
and when I paint
I'm always listening to a book.
I find that my imagination
really takes flight in the painting process
when I'm listening to audio books.

~ Thomas Kinkade

The Homecoming

Month of Love: Day 25


So happy to have my beautiful husband home again.

The human soul is hungry for beauty;
we seek it everywhere -
in landscape, music, art, clothes,
furniture, gardening, companionship,
love, religion, and in ourselves.
No one would desire not to be beautiful.

When we experience the beautiful,
there is a sense of homecoming.

~ John O'Donohue

Cold, Cold Heart

Month of Love: Day 24


The last of the ice melted off the backyard deck.

At the top of the stairs, this remained.

I love feeling alive,
I love walking out in the cold
in my bare feet
and feeling the ice on my toes.
~ Tori Amos

New Beginnings

Month of Love: Day 23


Spring has come early to north Idaho! It's not unusual to have snow into April in my neck of the woods. But look what popped up by my front door already. The tulips are here!

Seeing the leaves struggle up through the hard ground, pine needles, and bark touched my heart this morning. For today is an important day in my life ... when a 20 year emotional struggle ends, and a new part of my life is allowed to flower.

Twenty years ago my mom moved up to live near me. She needed kidney dialysis and the facility was in the next town over. After selling their home in Moscow, my dad joined my mom. I was their kid who lived close by in their declining years. I took them to their medical appointments. They shared meals with my little family.

I was with them when they died ... first Mom, and just over a year later, Dad. I was the child they asked to take care of their estate. I was the one named as family trustee -- to set up and administer an educational trust for their 17 (soon to be 19) grandchildren.

It's been an enormously long and emotionally challenging position. Money and family is not what I've experienced as a harmonious mixture -- the way hearts and flowers are. As of this morning, by the grace of a judge's pen, the job my parents entrusted to me is over. I've been released of my duties which now pass to my brothers.

So I'm like this tulip bud reaching up to touch the sun. My primary responsibility and duty is to stretch and grow. I can't wait to bloom!

Looking down from heaven's point of view, I grow from love!

Since love grows within you,
so beauty grows.
For love is the beauty of the soul.
~ Saint Augustine

Use Your Imagination

Month of Love: Day 22


I took a bite out of my apple last night, set the apple down, and saw this.
I love the way love follows me around.

Love doesn't grow on trees
like apples in Eden -
it's something you have to make.
And you must use your imagination too.
~ Joyce Cary

Fronds

Month of Love: Day 21

I love the joy that color can give to our lives.

~ Edi Rama

I Love You to Pieces

Month of Love: Day 20

I love being with friends 

and I love kissing 

and loving someone to pieces.

~ Sarah Silverman

Color Love

Month of Love: Day 19

In our life there is a single color, 

as on an artist's palette, 

which provides the meaning 

of life and art. 

It is the color of love.

~ Marc Chagall

Comfort Food

Month of Love: Day 18


Aromas evoke memories. Let's find love in sweet memories.

Baking cookies is comforting,
and cookies are the sweetest little bit of comfort food.
They are very bite-sized and personal.
~ Sandra Lee

It's the Little Things

Month of Love: Day 17

Love is in the tiny moments
~ George Takei

Some Lovin' Humor

Month of Love: Day 16

Humans love sex, 
we need sex,
it's how we connect, 
it reminds us we're alive, 
it's the third most basic human need, 
after food and good movie popcorn.
~ Billy Crystal

Love Becomes Habit

Month of Love: Day 15

Love is an act
of endless forgiveness,
a tender look
which becomes a habit.

~ Peter Ustinov

One Name

Month of Love: Day 14

My Valentine?

Dale

God is love. It's not Godzilla.

Month of Love: Day 13

Why am I a sinner? What did I do?
... I love Jesus, but I don't buy into 
the guilt, shame, judgement, condemn, and fear.
I think that's Godzilla God.

God is love.
It's not Godzilla.

Break the chain of
guilt, shame, judgement, condemn, and fear.
Say to yourself,

"I am a beam of light
that comes from
the mind of God."

~ Carlos Santana
   in an interview with Tavis Smiley
   February 11, 2016

Lasting Love

Month of Love: Day 12

I believe in lasting love
and the painful growth
that it requires.
~ James Kavanaugh

Twenty-seven Years

Month of Love: Day 11


Today is the 27th anniversary of the day my husband Dale and I met.
Still a happy couple.
Moving forward together with strength and curiosity.

Love grows more
tremendously full,
swift, poignant,
as the years multiply.
~ Zane Grey

Paper. Asphalt. Rain.

Month of Love: Day 10

Sometimes the heart sees
what is invisible to the eye.
~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Where's Your Focus?

Month of Love: Day 9

Focus on love and each other
~ Unknown

Love Your Originality

Month of Love: Day 8

Every single one of us can do things
that no one else can do --
can love things that no one else can love.
We are like violins.
We can be used for doorstops,
or we can make music.
You know what to do.
~ Barbara Sher

Choose Kindness

What you are choosing to do has consequences ...
Why not choose kindness?



You might also appreciate listening to this podcast:
This America Life
If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS

At the Heart of It All

Month of Love: Day 7
and this week's coloring meditation

At the heart of it all is love.
You make that choice,
and you go forward from there.
~ Sharon Shinn, Summers at Castle Auburn

Let's Not Throw Rocks, OK?

Month of Love: Day 6

I wish that people
who are conventionally supposed to love each other
would say to each other, when they fight,
"Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency."
~ Kurt Vonnegut

Snape Knew It

Month of Love: Day 5

Love is everything it's cracked up to be …
It really is worth fighting for,
being brave for,
 risking everything for.
~ Erica Jong 

Be Stronger

Month of Love: Day 4

Hate is very loud
But Love is stronger
~ Steve Harvey

Nye Beach. Sunset. Newport, Oregon

Month of Love: Day 3


Photo from a wonderful day with my Jodie in May, 2013.

If you love someone,
tell them
because hearts are often broken
by words left unspoken.
~ Pamela Daranjo

Natural Love

Month of Love: Day 2

Beauty and seduction, I believe,
is nature’s tool for survival,
because we will protect
what we fall in love with.
~ Louie Schwartzberg

Rabbit Rabbit - Love Style

February
A new month
The Month of Love

This month I'll post a heart a day ... some from the archives; some new.

---

Month of Love: Day 1

As you give love out, it's received
and reciprocated -- and it grows.
That's the beauty of it.
Love is an energy.
You can feed it to people,
and they in turn feed it to others,
and eventually it comes back.
— Hill Harper