Gratitude

The last prompt for the Love Your Blog Challenge is Gratitude.

I have so much to be thankful for. So I'm just going to sum it up and say....

I thank God for this beautiful, messy life I have. 

Yes, I've had heartaches, but you know what? Everything I have gone through has bought me to where I am now. And I LOVE where I am now and the life I have. I'm surrounded by love, my family supports me no matter what crazy adventure I take, and life is good.....very good.

~ For The Love Your Blog Challenge with Kate of A Playful Day

Ugly

In the blogging world, at least the blogs I read, only the best is put on display. It seems everyone has the perfect home, the perfect job, the perfect spouse, the perfect kids, the perfect Pinterest life. Who wants to share a messy house, the burnt meals, the fight you had with your husband....the murder of a son.

When the word Ugly was given as the prompt this week, the first thing that came to mind was the death of my son. That has been the "ugliest" part of my life....the ugliest part of my blog. Or so you would think.

When my son was killed, I blogged. Blogged my feelings, my heartache, the unfairness of it all. I poured out my heart. Dwelling on my son's death, I was unable to see past my tears, to the beauty this life still held. Life is so short. Too short to be unhappy. To dwell on circumstances I cannot change. Yes - losing my son was the worst thing that could ever happen. But I couldn't let the ugliness of that take control of my life. So I started to focus on the good, the beauty and love all around me.

Life isn't Pinterest perfect. We all have ugly in our lives. Do we want to display that ugly on our blogs? Do I want to display that ugly? Yes....I do. Because through the ugly I found a sort of healing. I can look back on the worst moments of my life and see that I survived. That I may have helped someone going through the "ugly" in their life.

And from ugly, beauty was born. ~ For The Love Your Blog Challenge with Kate of A Playful Day

Beginnings

My flower beds have been in dire need of attention. Grass and weeds have grown into them and old gladiolus stalks add to the disarray. Such a sad state of affairs.

After much avoidance, this past weekend the weather was perfect for gardening. I wasn't exactly looking forward to cleaning out the beds, but once I got started I actually enjoyed it. The sun felt good on my skin, the smell of the dirt, even the little worms and bugs I encountered was a simple pleasure.

I have gladiolus planted in both beds, but decided to move them all over to one bed. One bed for perennials and one bed for annuals. The first bed I cleared, I planted sunflowers and pumpkins. I grew sunflowers a couple years ago and loved them. This will be my first time planting pumpkins. They are small pumpkins, and I'm not sure they will grow, but we will see. I think this bed may be my favorite. The sunflowers are planted toward the back along the fence (2nd picture) and the pumpkins are planted in the middle. The beds look small in the pictures, but they are actually pretty good sized. The back of pumpkin package said to plant Apr - Jun and after I planted them, I realized it should have waited longer. They will be full grown in 110 days, which will make it July 30! Too early for pumpkins. You live and learn, right. Next year I will wait a bit to plant them, because if these grow, I will definitely plant them again next year.

The second flower bed, has my gladiolus which I planted a few years ago, and I added daises to them. This will be my first time with daises, such happy flowers.

I can't wait to see little sprouts shooting up. The first time I planted flowers I was amazed and excited when they actually grew! I'm no gardener.....well, maybe I am. Who am I to say I'm not :)

New beginnings, full of promise.

~ For The Love Your Blog Challenge with Kate of A Playful Day

Interactions and Community

I've been blogging since 2007.

I use to blog all the time, but have lost my blogging mojo these last couple of years. I've been wanting to get back into blogging, but every time I try, I feel forced and the words just don't come. I came across A Playful Day's blog challenge - The Love Your Blog Challenge and decided to give it a try. I want to love my blog again. So here it goes!

This weeks prompt is all about Interactions and Community. And that is what I loved about blogging. The community I built, and friends I made while on this journey. Blogging helped me during the hardest time of my life. The death of my oldest son. Through my blog, I was able to pour out my heart and find other Moms who were going through the same heartache as I. Our children did not die from sickness or accident, but by murder. The death of a child is devastating, but losing a child to murder.....it's the worst.

Trying to maintain after his death, I found my love of knitting. My mom taught me to knit as a child. I knit one thing, a stuffed horse, and never knit again. After the death of my son, how he died consumed my mind. If I wasn't moving, or doing something my mind would drift to his death, the way he died and the horror of it all, so I always had to be doing something. And knitting became that something. As long as I was knitting, reading patterns, learning something new, my mind was off his death. And slowly, but surely I wasn't focused so much on how my son died, but on the happy times, and along the way became a better knitter. And found my love of knitting dolls!

Blogging, knitting, community building! It's all here.

~ For The Love Your Blog Challenge with Kate of A Playful Day.

~ pictures - clothes for my newest doll, Holly Hobbie and Little House on the Prairie inspired.