A Wake for the Ego

I am awake,
whether the eyes
are open or closed.
Awake, in this one solitary moment,
blissfully awake.
There is nowhere to go,
nothing to do but be
here awake.
I stood behind you,
held you lovingly in my arms
as you died.
For so long it was not
what you wanted,
yet finally,
when you surrendered
it was beautiful,
like watching a butterfly on a rose petal.
...

I just had to get this one down just 'cause I don't wanna forget this one!

I'm at Touro with my FIL for his operation at 7AM on Fri. a couple of weeks ago. So we go in a little room for pre-op with the little paper dress and all that goodness that you get when you are about to have surgery. Being the daughter-in-law, there are just some things you shouldn't see and so I stepped out the room while they did their thing. As I was standing in the hall this guy steps out of the room...

I do not mean to be all doom and gloom but I do think it's important to be realistic and to make decisions about our future based on reality...not false hope.

Furthermore things are doom and gloom only if one is focused on this life as being all the life there is to be had.

If, as a Christian, a person truly and honestly and I mean really is focused on the next life as that life that they want to be living...then no matter how bad things get here...their eyes are on...

I loved Portland, ME for its old houses & buildings, the port, the parks, bookstores, and coffee shops. What a nice place to visit.

We were "stuck" there an extra day, yesterday, getting work done on our RV. In the RAIN, after watching it from a park overlooking the bay for awhile, we decided to find a coffee shop. We found a GREAT one: Hilltop Coffee Shop. The coffee was good, the clientele seemed very friendly, and there was a sense of community there that I really liked....

Recently I read an article from RISMEDIA tilted "Have we hit bottom - 10 Factors to Consider" and in this article they covered the following 10 factors signaling a bottoming of the real estae market.
1. A spike in local sales activity. A spike refers to a significant rise in the number of home sales (or values) in a local market area, which generally is measured month to month. A spike does not necessarily mean continued growth, i.e. it could be a one month phenomenon.
2....