Yep, I’ve probably shown this pic before, but here it is again. After all, it is Only the Good Friday over at This Eclectic Life, Woohoo! This stands as my Only the Good for today. It is my mom and brother and me! A very very long time ago. Daddy took the picture on one of our trips across the bay on a ferry to Bahia Beach. I admit I do not remember those trips… but I remember the times I spent with my parents when I was a tad older, and boy, am I grateful!

What does this have to do with you? I just wanted to share that we can one day remember people we have lost without falling completely apart, without it bringing searing pain. There comes a time we are able to remember – and share – memories of those you have lost with a smile in our faces and hearts.

And, Not just the smiles that flash for a quick second, then turn to a sadness that bores holes in the warm safely of our souls; the smiles that go on and on and on without break — until some quiet moment or most inopportune place.

Yeah, after all these years, I have ‘touchy’ moments, sometimes so subtle I don’t recognize them.

Yeah, the loneliness and the sadness will smack you around for a second, even later, but it will be different – and much shorter lived. And honestly, in reality, do we REALLY want to insulate ourselves from feeling that grief 100%? “I’m just saying,” to quote Shelly’s expression.

Yet, I know no one who has recently lost someone wants us spouting, “It gets easier with time,” so, those of you in that situation, just let it slide into your subconscious, but ignore it outwardly. That’s OK.

Today, May 8, 2009, would have been Mom’s 89th celebration of her birthday, but she died years ago. But, hey, I still get to celebrate her birth out loud or in writing or in a whisper or just in my head. I have a feeling wherever her soul landed, she can feel my words.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you, and I am ever so grateful it was you and Daddy that raised Bill and I and not someone else! Now, just know we are OK, and go back to your golf game with Daddy — although the water is fine this time a year, too. (Hi, Daddy! What? You still don’t like the beach and would rather go golfing? Get over it, there are snow cones there, remember?)

Why not find the good in your day, your surroundings everyday? And why not share it with the world on Fridays. I bet we can light up the world with our good one Friday. I do, I bet we can!

And, you know what? If a few more of us would get off our duffs and get the Medicine Bags made, a certain group of kids in Texas and their families would be ligthting up the sky with their smiles in July. HINT HINT (to self, too!)

Sure we can learn about life and society and causes just by turning on the TV, reading a newspaper, browsing the internet, or talking to people – and, of course, by living it. But blogging exposes us to a side of humanity we don’t necessarily get from a news report or magazine article. And it exposes us to people letting their guard down, to thoughts written in moods of all sorts. It is a glimpse of real people, for however much some try to disguise their true selves, it eventually come out in their writing. And since a lot of blogging is short snippets, we are more tempted to read a point of view other than our own. Besides, sometimes we actually get the news first from other bloggers. If I can’t climb a mountain, I can find someone that will share their climb with me. If I feel sad and need to know others are, I can find someone sad out there, and happy, of course, I can find happy.

I love blogging, I love reading blogs, I love being exposed to the world…. I love that bloggers share.

Check out the other good Shelly’s and her readers have taken the time to share.

John G's Fruit

YIKES! I just looked at the photo, the color is drained, the watermelon was a deep red, and so on. But you get the portion size, I hope, so I will leave it posted.

Now doesn’t that fruit tempt you? This is the fruit that comes with fish if you choose that option rather than fries at John G’s, across from the beach in Lake Worth. Leon grabbed it for our lunch the other day. His fish was in a container just slightly smaller than this one! I only ordered fries and cole slaw. Of course, he shared his fruit, he bought it because I had been bugging him to order it instead of fish and fries all these months. He had leftover fish, fries, and slaw for dinner tonight. I posted a photo of his breakfast there back in September. I guess it is about time I posted the link to their site: John G’s, 33 years of breakfast and lunch service!

Now to the heart of the day:

I seem to have this love hate relationship with Shelly’s Only the Good Friday since I tend to forget it is Friday or I do things like this morning and manage to lose an entire Only the Good post! Maybe it is just that I am so easily distracted anyway and have been quite busy trying to find a new place for us to live that meets ALL our needs and is dirt cheap, make the decision on whether to change our life style in a major way sooner than planned, and renew or delete my blogs immediately as they are about to be deleted if I don’t renew. Add to that trying to remember I am not longer retired full time but working part time and I am just all over the place. (OK, so the latter comes naturally.)

It must be the distracted thing, because I LOVE Only the Good Friday, I am excited Shelly at This Eclectic Life has made it into a meme, finally. More importantly, I believe in posting about Only the Good at least one day a week, I used to do it and had planned to make it a meme, but knew my personality would never keep it up. It needs someone like Shelly to do it. So, check it out here. Join in, I would LOVE to read what you think is good in this world.

My original post today was about being in the moment and seeing how much enjoyment I find in otherwise frustrating things like hunting for a house, organizing things, working. But that post disappeared So, let’s change the focus from me to all of us! (Perhaps, there was good in that missing post.)

You don’t have to like your entire project or job to get some enjoyment: just be in the moment as you are working so you CAN recognize the parts you do like and focus on them first. Already you have found good in your day.

You could, then, take it a step farther and try to be in the moment when doing a part of your project or job you don’t like. Why? Because if you pull yourself into that crummy project and look for the good in that moment, you may find parts of the disliked project you actually don’t mind, or maybe even enjoy when looking at it without emotion. Just a thought, y’all.

Feel free to check out what good Shelly and her readers have found to write about this week!

I was afraid we had put off too long going shopping for toys for the Marine Corps Toys for Tots drive, so I was feeling pretty low. You see, I procrastinate all the time; worry about not having a retirement income some of the time; haven’t had money above bills at other times in the past. That added up to too many years of giving less than we should have. (I don’t count the years we were plain broke or had family members to help, I refuse to feel guilt over something that happens to most of us at some time or the other.))

But guilt because of just plain procrastinating, well, that is well-deserved! Today, I Googled Toys for Tots and found out we have until the 23rd of December to donate toys in both Palm Beach County and Broward County! And today is only the 19th! And what is so cool is there is a two page list of places to donate and the hours they are located. So, if you are down here and have just been procrastinating like me, click here!

If you are elsewhere, this is a link to the national site for Toys for Tots. (And the picture in that site’s header is just plain adorable!)

A photo follows of the Biker Santa Toy Run in St. Petersburg during November, 2004. It is so much more powerful to see in person with hundreds of bikes going by.

My parting thought: Remember a smile, a hug, your presence, are all worth more than presents piled to the sky. One present we sometimes forget to give: acceptance of the other person’s dreams when they are different than ours…

And run over and see what good Shelly at This Eclectic Life has shared, Mmm Good! Join us?