"In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet." ~Albert Schweitzer~

I'm BACK!!!

If anyone's been wondering where I went . . . I strained my back sometime prior to Wednesday. I was in a lot of pain and funny thing, sitting was excruciating but walking around, cleaning, was not! So that meant not a lot of time in front of the computer, but I did catch my kitchen up that I let go . . . so it was a blessing in disguise. I get daily quotes, called Word of the Day, from gratefulness.org, and on Friday was this one "I've never felt a pain that didn't bear a blessing. ~Gene Knudsen Hoffman~" How appropriate! My kids helped pick stuff off the floor that I wanted since bending was a little difficult, but my kitchen counters are spotless! My back is better, not completely perfect, but better. The worst is long rides/drives in the car . . . which from where we live is pretty much anywhere. I hurt when I first get to work, but by the end of the day I'm moving pretty good.

Some would think the quote above on pain would be my quote, but I want to go back to the one I started on Wednesday but found to painful to complete.

"In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet." ~Albert Schweitzer~

I find this a really beautiful quote.

There is nothing wrong with "reaching for the moon". This country was built by people who wanted to "reach for the moon", both literally and figuratively. That's how great progress is made. But on a personal level, the only thing that is wrong is forgetting to appreciate things along the way. Only in hind site do we see the opportunities, situations and relationships we missed along the way because of our single-mindedness.

Growing up, I always wanted to be a mother, and though my first was not a planned pregnancy, maybe that single-minded desire led me to be less cautious that I might have otherwise been. Reaching for my moon, I missed out on my 20's. I watched my friends "have lives" while I stayed home with the babies. My moon was and is an extremely worthwhile goal, nothing to regret, but I am aware of the flowers I missed along the way. That was always my advice for my young friends . . . wait to have kids, there will be plenty of time later, take time to enjoy being a couple right now. Now as more and more of my friends are entering their 30's, my advice will probably be more tempered, but we all have instances in our past that we wish we could have done differently and would gladly warn others if we could.

Unfortunately most of the those lessons are learned the hard way. But what if we could become more aware, now, of the flowers, now? I can't change how I did things back then, but I sure can enjoy what I have now. As tough as anyone of us have it, there is always something we can appreciate and be grateful for.

All of the above aside, I think it's a really beautiful quote.

Love and Blessings!
MOTH3R