Spring: Ten Sprightly Steps to Take This Season

“Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.” Sarah Ban Breathnach

Allegory of Spring  - Image via Wikipedia

I love Spring and everything about that particular season. It is about renewal, rebirth, color and casualness. Every time I think about Spring, I feel a spring in my step and my mood is infinitely lighter. Who doesn't like spring? Only a rare bird would see the blossoms and smell the fresh air and turn its nose up at that time of the year... Well, enough with the poetry.

When I read the prompt from MamaKat's Writers Workshop that got me singing the spring swan song, I wanted to write about the obvious; fashion and stuff. But as I thought about it, I decided it would be sprightly (don't you love that word?) to use a different approach with the question: The prompt was to - Share 10 "Must Haves" this Spring! Here are Ten Sprightly Steps/Must Haves to take us into Spring.

Colorful Spring Blooms...

✿♡✿Sprightly Step 1: One notable change we see from winter to spring is color; flowers, clothing and lifeforms come alive. First on our list is to get some of those wonderful spring flowers in a vase for your home, a few sprigs to wear in your hair, or a potted flowering plant for your terrace.
✿♡✿Sprightly Step 2: Key to enjoying the shift in temperatures is the change in our wardrobes. The colors for spring are always lighter and brighter than winter. So wake up the fashionista in you and dig out or buy some good colorful, lightweight clothes. Here are fabulous spring-wear tips and trends from: StyleList, Glamour and InStyle.
✿♡✿Sprightly Step 3: Nothing beats having good fresh foods during the spring season. The local farmers markets start to stir and an array of delicious fruits and vegetable can be purchased and prepared. For recipes and to feast your eyes on exquisite foods, do visit my Blogger friend Roz's scrumptious food blog Bellavita-Bellasblog. She will satisfy your senses and your stomach. Thank you Roz!
✿♡✿Sprightly Step 4: Get some fresh air by getting out your gardening tools and start planting those beds of seedlings you nursed over the winter. The air is fresh and the blooms are blossoming, so add some mulch, remove the weeds, cut a few blooms for your home and walk... Inhale!
✿♡✿Sprightly Step 5: I would be remiss if I didn't add travel. The great thing about traveling in the springtime is that the masses are still home preparing for their big summertime trips. Take a trip in the spring and enjoy the cherry blossoms in Japan or an easy breeze on the beach at any of the locations below. Travel, especially if you win it, is always fun.

So after the following wonderful announcement for a fabulous vacation from JustLuxe, and our casual blog hops, I'll share more of my 10 things to have this spring season... ✿♡✿Read the rest below, after the fantastic vacation offer & blog hops!

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Put a spring in your step by following the link above left and registering to win one of several exotic luxury vacations. Sponsored by my friends at JustLuxe, sign up once and every month, you get entered to win. It's free and fun.
Also Join Our Two✿♡✿Informal Easy Blog Hops✿♡✿ Below:

Inspiration: Ten Lessons Learned On the Path...

“Remember today, for it is the beginning of always. Today marks the start of a brave new future filled with all your dreams can hold. Think truly to the future and make those dreams come true.” Anon
 

Inspired Woman by William Adolphe Bouguereau in 1898

For many years, I believed that the only way I could get inspired to write or do any creative work was by listening to specific types of music, in a specific spot, thinking specific thoughts. Of course, when all my props were not lined up like baby ducklings in a row, I would beg off the creative activity and do something else. As time went by, I realized that if I didn't take the time to get creative, to find inspiration even in the mundane, I'd never get my creative projects completed. I needed what Tony Robbins calls "massive action."

But, the mind is a powerful instrument and we can make all the excuses we want in the world and justify them with facts and more facts. However, in recent months, I have felt a shift, call it an affirmation that when we put our mind to the grindstone and do the work, inspiration will find us. With effort, sooner or later, she will come calling because the work must get done and whatever we resist persists.

So when I received MamaKat's Writer's Workshop prompts this week, I choose  - (1.) Lesson learned!  Here are some of the 10 lessons I learned on finding and staying inspired: 

Lesson 1: Inspiration happens all the time and we can be inspired by the most mundane to the most sublime thing; if we pay attention.
Lesson 2: While it is often encouraged to set a schedule for creative work, you can choose to follow a thought, a word, or an image whenever it occurs and use it as an inspiring guide; pause.
Lesson 3: When you walk into a familiar place next time, decide to pay close attention and see the space/place as if with new eyes; you will be nicely surprised; observe.
Lesson 4: When driving for an errand, choose to try another approach to your familiar one; play a new radio station, park in a different location and walk back, take another route and look around; listen.

After my JustLuxe and Blog Hop invitations below, I will share the rest of  the ten (10) lessons I learned about finding our inspiration and how to use it to help us maintain and refocus on our creative goals.

✿♡✿Read the rest below, after the fantastic vacation offer & blog hops!

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Find some inspiration by following the link above left and registering to win one of several exotic luxury vacations. Sponsored by my friends at JustLuxe, sign up once and every month, you get entered to win. It's free and fun.
Also Join The Two✿♡✿ Easy Week-Long Posts & Social Media Blog Hops✿♡✿ Below:

Simple Tips For Creating Balance In Our Lives

"To achieve greatness, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time." Leonard Bernstein

Balancing Acts - Work, Life, Self...

I like the quote by Leonard Bernstein above because it reminds me again that waiting for enough time to do anything meaningful is ... well, a waste of time. The busiest, most accomplished people manage their time by setting up a schedule, prioritizing and honoring their plan; they make time. To create/find balance in our lives, we must make a concerted effort to make time. This week, I have chosen prompt#2.) Finding the balance. How do you manage? from MamaKat's Writer's Workshop.

Something I've learned from experience is that when I create a realistic schedule for myself, I am less inclined to feel rushed or stressed than when I just take on projects and let events happen to me. Recently, I took on a challenging project that required constant review and responses. Soon I was consumed by the time demands and had to re-evaluate the schedule I had set up and tweak it again. I realized that not only did the project need re-evaluation; I needed to go back to my original intentions for the project.

Creating a work/life balance remains a constant concern for most people. Before we create a plan to make our lives less hectic and more balanced, it is important to ask ourselves three fundamental questions: Intention - What do I want to accomplish with my life now? Purpose - Why does it matter? and Plan - What must I do to achieve my plan? ✿♡✿Read the rest below, after the fantastic vacation offer & blog hops!

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Balance includes, following the link above left and registering to win one of several exotic luxury vacations. Sponsored by my friends at JustLuxe, sign up once and every month, you get entered to win. It's free and fun.
Also Join The Two✿♡✿MEGA WEEK-LONG BLOG POSTS & SOCIAL MEDIA BLOG HOPS✿♡✿ Below:

Breaking The Rules: Not What You Think

"Sometimes you have to break the rules around you to keep the rules within you" -Martha Beck 

Grand Prismatic Spring; Hot Springs Yellowstone National Park.

Breaking The Rules: Not What You Think
The prompt I selected this week for MamaKat's Writer's Workshop, {5. Read the following quote and respond: "Sometimes you have to break the rules around you to keep the rules within you" } comes from a quote in an article, 20 Questions That Could Change Your Life, by Martha Beck, a contributing editor for O Magazine. It is #17 and the rest of it is below.

17. Where should I break the rules?
If everyone kept all the rules, we'd still be practicing cherished traditions like child marriage, slavery, and public hangings. The way humans become humane is by assessing from the heart, rather than the rule book, where the justice of a situation lies. Sometimes you have to break the rules around you to keep the rules within you.

I think it becomes pretty clear when we look at the 20 questions that Martha's point is that we must step forward and honor the spring flowing from our hearts - our heart's calling. To keep the rules within us, we must act; regardless of the socio-cultural mores that hold us back. Many of us grew up in cultures that had very specified roles for men and women. These roles were often followed by rules of conduct, lines each member was not allowed to cross, expectations for each gender, and penalties for those who dared speak truth to their own power.

These codified rules meant that many of us, men and women, I dare say more women, never dared to meet our inner diva; to claim our fullest power because we were always being guided by restrictions masquerading as propriety. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a doctor; to heal people of their pain and suffering. While I was not exactly discouraged, there was no big rush to support that dream. The dream that seemed to be encouraged was that of teacher, or historian; perfectly legitimate fields but not what I imagined.

Now don't get me wrong, but I wasn't speaking of traditional medicine either. The word healer had deeper meaning to me as a child and I knew it had more to do with healing inner pain than physical wounds. As I matured,  I learned to honor what was expected of me but soon found myself turning more and more to paths of healing; be it through words, music or other non-traditional methods. Yet, anther ancient voice would always intervene... "Seek the professions, go mainstream, be mainstream and then ... hold back." 

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Laughter: The Best Elixir...

“Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. ..” William Saroyan

The Hatters' Stages of Laughter via Wikipedia

A dose of rib tickling laughter never fails to shift our mood and warm our blood. We can't say enough about how laughter is a natural life prolonging elixir; particularly a good and hearty laugh. I admire comedians. They spend a lifetime entertaining the rest of us with their wry observations of human behavior in what we typically call - a joke. I love jokes and my friends and family send them to me quite often... I get every kind of joke you can imagine; salty, silly, outrageous and sweet. Some you just can't publish. Others make you wonder; how did they come up with that?

As you might have guessed, this week's prompt from MamaKat's Writing Workshop includes a question on laughter.  3.) Describe the last thing that made you laugh really hard. Since I get a lot of jokes by email from my family and closest friends, I knew where to go for a recent reference point. I sifted through the laugh-out-loud material I have in my collection and I selected three that had me in stitches; a story, a poem and a card or report of sorts... you'll see.  I got them from friends and family and, fortunately, I have found out the origins of two of the jokes.  The card format came by email so If you know the origin, let me know as I'll gladly give the right attribution.

Win Trips of a Lifetime

Win Trips of a Lifetime

First off, here is an awesome luxury vacation contest of a lifetime for you! It's the chance to enter and win a luxury trip sponsored by my friends at JustLuxe. Sign up once and every month, you get entered to win. It's free and fun. Plus, you might get to take that special someone on a journey to an exotic locale. Follow the link above left and register to win one of several exotic luxury trips. :-) Bon voyage!
More on a Belly full of Laughter Below