love love love

Ok....seriously...I LOVE this poem. This man is pure genius. This makes me feel so deeply. It makes me weep. It makes me want to tell the world. I am going to be ME. I am sick of hiding. I am sick of pretending in order to fit in. I believe that my life has been on hold because I could not greet my own arrival.

Well, today....I look into the mirror and I say Welcom Home Kimberly.

I have been waiting for your return.

Now,  let's live.

Really, really live.

Now, here is the poem.

Read it.

Feel it.

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott

FYI

I may have had a change of heart.....I find myself returning to my original blog that I started when we traveled to China to meet our precious daughter, Lilly Grace. Somehow this blog just seems like home. I struggle though because I LOVE the name The Hour of Blue. The hour of blue is my favorite time of day. Twilight...when there is a purpley bluish cast to everything and we let the cares of the day slip away. It is a magical time and a time to give thanks for another day. I was so excited when I thought of that name and it had not already been taken. But...I keep wanting to write at the Lilly blog...after all it was Lilly who showed me that I wanted to live my life for a greater purpose. I had no idea when we decided to adopt that my heart would be split wide open, not just by her but by every single one of the 147 million children that live as orphans. I don't know yet all the ways I can help but I continue to pray on it and trust that the right way will make itself known. I don't think I will post much here right now but I will be posting at http://www.thestoryoflilly.com/ and I would love for you to visit me there.

xo

Kimberly

Where have I been?

Hmmm.....well, I have been to the grocery store, the post office, the bookstore, Target but where have I really been??? Did you think I was giving up on this blog already??? No, quite the opposite in fact. I am working on something that has been brewing for quite some time and it just can't wait another minute. An idea that came to myself and my friend Sharlyn is just begging to be completed and put out for others to enjoy. The project was 80% done over two years ago but we had some growing up to do before we could finish the other 20%.

There really is a season for everything.

 At times we can shame or scold ourselves for not bringing something into completion and certainly procrastination can be a very real thing. A real thing but  now always a bad thing. I personally think that procrastination can be God's way of stalling us until it is time. Now, don't get carried away with this theory. I think keeping our house clean, laundry done and bills paid are not things that we should procrastinate on. But sometimes when we are aren't working on a project or putting the finishing touches on something it is simply because the time is not right. We would be wise to pay more attention to when something feels right and take action during these times. Have you ever really needed to talk to someone and you keep running the conversation over and over in your head and you keep thinking "I should just call" and then all of a sudden one day you have dialed the number before you even realize what you have done? This is what I am talking about. Timing is everything. A subtle difference between waiting for the perfect time and procrastination but important to understand. Sometimes it takes hindsight to really see this. There are several reasons why this project was not ready to make it's appearance until now. I haven't always seen this but I do now.

So, I hope to be back with you sooner rather than later but first things first.

You will be among the first to know when we are finished and ready to take the next step.

Now, go do those dishes.

Just one question.......

What

would

you

attempt

to

do

if

you

knew

you

could

not

fail?

Soak up the Sun

For those of us who dread winter, these are the days to get outside and soak up all that sunny goodness. These warm, sparkly days are just the best.

Today my adult troubles loomed so large. I made it a point to go outside with Lilly and just be with her. She chased the dog, ate the last of the strawberries out of the garden and reminded me that in this very moment EVERYTHING is okay. She has brought such joy into our lives, we barely remember life without her. I think my troubles are big and then I remind myself that if everyone threw their troubles into a pile we would all race back to pick up our own. All things are blessed, including those things that seem to be your biggest obstacle. Whatever squeeze I find myself in is just my greatest yet to be trying to burst forth. I remember a quote from Arthur Ash the tennis champion...

"If I have to ask why me about my burdens, then I would have to ask why me about my blessings."

Instead, I will just say thank you for every single bit of it.

Without the dark I would not recognize the light.

We need contrast to put our lives into context, I now understand this. Thank you to Neale Donald Walsch. His book "Happier Than God" really helped me to see this. Don't let the title be misleading. It is quite a scientific book and truly has the power to change the course of your life.

Read it and see.

I am getting very sleepy.....

I can  hear my nice, clean, white Rachel Ashwell sheets calling my name.

It was nice to chat with you, I hope you are tucked in safe and loved.

Nighty night,

Kimberly

Happy Birthday Dan Dan

Sunday at my Mom's house.........

A sure sign of Fall

Lilly and Dan Dan putting ladder ball together

Dinner cooking

Make a wish!

This was sooooooooooo good

Who is Dan Dan? He is my mother's boyfriend and I seriously wish there was another word for boyfriend because everytime I say it I just feel weird. Not because I don't think she should have one and not because I don't like him (because I very much do) but because boyfriend sounds so highschool. So that covers who Dan Dan is but why that name you ask? Well, our children call my father Dad Dad (a shortened version of Granddad). When Dan entered the picture after my parents were divorced we joked one time that we replaced Dad Dad with Dan Dan and it stuck. Isn't it funny how nicknames happen? My nickname is Bele (say buh-lee) because my sister could not say Kimberly when she was little. To this day she calls me that and never by my real name. I won't bore you with all the whys of how nick names came to be but here is a short list of some in my family.

Richard.......Gee

Beth.......Cuzza Wuzza

Scott.........Scotty Wotty Do Da

Jennifer......Jeffin

Heidi.........Hilly

Lilly..........the Bean

Gregory.......Mr. G

Sharlyn.......sissy

I think it is so endearing to have a nickname and let me just tell you one more story about the first one on the list. How in the world did my cousin Richard start going by the name Gee (not gee as in gee whiz but Gee as in the g sound in the word great) Got it? Good.

Apparently my Aunt Stella (who my Uncle affectinately referred to as Telly) use to babysit way, way back in the day. As in way back I am talking the late 1960's. It seems one little girl just couldn't say Richard and so she called him Gee. That name stuck like glue and out of our 90 plus member family we ALL call him Gee. A few years ago we were at a family function and his mother (Telly) informed me that Gee really likes to go by Rich and uses that name at his job and she was trying hard to call him Rich so he did not feel like a litte boy with such a silly nickname when he was a grown man. I can appreciate the fact that he would not want to be called Gee at his job but what do you think the chances of me calling him Rich are after 40 years of knowing him as my cousin Gee. I will tell you the chances are ZERO. Never gonna happen. Can't be done.

He has been and always will be Gee.

Now I must confess that one of the things that is so fun about keeping this blog is that I almost never have a plan about what I am going to write. I often upload  my photos and just share the images that strike me at the time. Those images are my jumping off point for starting to write and then I just wind up wherever I do. So today I went from Dan Dan's birthday celebration to nicknames. I love that about writing and I love that about life. Too careful planning often sucks the life out of life.

What's your nickname?

Talk to you soon,

Bele'

What I Can See From Here

So............ I am very happy about having an empty memory card so that I don't have to wait forever to upload 5 pictures because there are six months of photos on there that have to "read" first. Yay for me, I can really do this technology thing...kind of. So, in an earlier post I said I wasn't always going to be inspiring I was going to sometimes just post about the mundane beauty of everyday life. Welcome to my life this beautiful September day. I have done six loads of laundry, played outside with Lilly, vacuumed the dining room, made beds, talked on the phone to two friends and survived a call from the bank regarding scary mortgage on unfinished dream house. I was hanging out on facebook, checking my email and catching up on my favorite blogs and Lilly fell asleep on my lap. I decided that it would be fun to use my new (empty :) !!!!!) memory card to show you what I could see from here while I was serving as the bed for a sweet sleeping girl. Welcome to my desk!

reading a favorite blog

my favorite old sign and $7 fan from garage sale

random inspirational stuff

sleeping baby on lap

beautiful print from Sharlyn and Heidi representing future dreams

Try this sometime. Just take pictures without moving around. I found this pretty entertaining.

Hope you enjoyed the mini tour.

xo

Kimberly