Tag Archives: Life

Mandala Monday ~ It’s Been a While

Life is a wheel

constantly turning

ever-changing

staying the same

 

Around and around

right side up

upside down

perspectives in flux 

 

But the Center never moves

 and for that I am truly grateful

 

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2021

20210711_212521

Hi friends, it’s been a while! I hope this finds all of you well and that you have beauty and joy and love in your lives!

Things have been extremely challenging for me recently, but in this moment I am ok, filled with gratitude. 🙏

I haven’t been feeling as creative as I usually am, but I have made a few nature mandalas since I was here last and thought I’d share them with you.

My garden is a bit lacking this year, so I haven’t had as much to work with, but I’m sincerely appreciating and enjoying what I do have.  I just harvested some yellow beans from my veggie garden and they were actually what sparked the inspiration for the mandala above. Here it is with the beans…

😁

And here is a mandala I made a couple weeks ago…

And a few others…

I also made a little mini wreath one day just for kicks…

I used peppermint for the base and it was very fragrant!  I’m so grateful for my sense of smell.  And for all my senses.

Well, I guess that’s all for now. I gotta go get ready for work.  Thanks so much for letting me share!  I hope this brightens your day in some small way! 🌼 May it be happy and blessed, and may the wheel of life spin you in beautiful directions today!

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Please Handle With Care

Precious hands

precious creature 

precious moment

 

Life is precious

 

Please handle with care

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2020

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Talkative Tuesday

So, you guys know how I said that I haven’t been feeling very wordy lately?  Well, I think that is about to change today…

Don’t you miss the good old days when I first started this blog when I used to actually ‘ramble’ on Ramblings’ from Jewels?  Or maybe you don’t haha!

Life is ever-evolving and I just try to go with the flow of whatever I’m feeling or thinking, or not.  One thing I always want this space to be is one of hope and joy and beauty.  I always want the energy I send out into the world through my blog, to be of benefit to others in some way, so I’m selective sometimes about what I choose to share.

When I write my poetry – or whatever you call it, I usually like to use the least amount of words to try to convey the deeper feelings and meanings, and my aim is to always be authentic and true to myself.  When I’m feeling despair or sadness, I tend to hold back sharing because I don’t want that emotion to trickle down onto to anyone else.  But sometimes if the words are still beautiful I might share.

But anyway, getting to the point…  Today I’m feeling very wordy and not feeling like being particularly careful about what I have to say. So here I go…

I had an old acquaintance message me this morning on Facebook asking how I’m doing.  It was very nice of her to check in.  However, she happened to catch me just as I had come back into the house after going out to investigate what the trash/debris was that I saw out on my side-yard from my kitchen window.  Do you guys want to know what it was?  Well, I’m going to tell you anyways…  it was a pair of soiled men’s briefs along with a huge wad of gas station paper towels all covered in feces.  Yep.

Well, hey, accidents happen, right?  I can’t think too harshly toward the person who left it there, right?  I should probably feel sorry for them, right?  I mean, it’s no pleasant thing to shit yourself, poor guy, right?  But when you add it to everything else that’s been going on lately – and there’s been a lot, mind you, that’s been going on around here, it set off a chain of rambling to this poor unsuspecting acquaintance who was just checking in to ask “How’s life been treating you?”  Well, like shit, actually, and quite literally, at the moment ha!

Yesterday, I placed an online order for my annuals and some of my herbs and veggies for my garden.  I’m so thankful for the garden centers offering curbside pick-up.  But it was hard, I had to let go and release of bit control, in not being the one to individually pick out each plant myself – and there were some scraggly and lesser quality plants that they had selected.  But I will give them the TLC I give all of my garden and will hopefully nurse them back to good health.  But I only mention that to tell you about what I discovered when I went out to my car to head out to pick up my order…  Someone had broken into my car.  And they had rifled through the glove-box and then left it open, so my car battery was dead.  Nice.  Thankfully, a good friend who lives nearby was able to come over and give me a jump.  The only funny part is that all they stole were some old CD’s out of my center console that were Christian Punk Rock music from like the 90’s haha!  My daughter used to listen to them in the car when she was in like 6th grade.  She’s 28. Yeah, I don’t know why those were still in my car…?  But haha thieves, have fun with those CD’s, I’m sure they’re worth a lot.  Not.  I’m just glad they didn’t find the stash of quarters I have hidden in a ‘secret’ compartment – there’s like 10 whole dollars in there!

The day before yesterday, I went down to my basement to get something and discovered the floor all around my washer and dryer covered in 2 inches of thick, gooey liquid.  Apparently, our giant industrial-sized jug of liquid laundry detergent had somehow fallen off the edge of the dryer and exploded all over onto the floor.  What a sticky, icky mess!  Not easy to clean up.  At all.  Luckily we had some dirty laundry in the clothes hamper down there that we could use to sop it up with.  But each load had to be run through the wash cycle 3 – 4 times to get all the detergent out and it still reeks of detergent.  It makes me wonder how ‘clean’ laundry really actually gets…

A few days before that, I was sitting up in my room having my morning coffee when I heard a noise below my window, like a crackling.  When I looked out I saw a guy taking off on his bike with a huge handful of branches from my rhododendron.  And when I went out to check on it I found a GAPING hole right smack in the middle of my bush.  Remember that ‘rather unsightly hole’ I mentioned in my last post?  Well, you don’t want to see it now – completely butchered.  Couldn’t the guy had taken some from one of the sides, like, just wow dude. I was super pissed!  I planted that shrub for my parents 20+ years ago. It was especially disheartening for me because I’ve been waiting sooooo long for the blooming things to return, like it was as if my soul depended on it, and then someone comes along and destroys the one thing in my yard that’s blooming.  Thankfully, there are more blooming things now – my lilacs are just about to bloom, and it’s only the beginning of the season of blooming things.  I’m thinking I might hang some sort of shiny bauble or maybe hang some sweet sounding little chimes to help pretty-up and fill that gaping hole.

This rambling is getting pretty long.  If you’re still reading, I appreciate you ‘listening.’

You may have noticed that I haven’t even mentioned anything that is going on that is related to COVID-19. Ugh, I hate even typing it.  Since it all began, I have purposely not wanted to give it any space on my blog and purposely haven’t shared about any of the ways it has affected my life.  I don’t know, like as a protest against it or something?  Not that that makes any sense whatsoever.  I guess I figure there’s already plenty of stuff about it everywhere else and I’d rather have my blog be a place to get away from it for a moment.  But I know it helps people to talk about it too.  Ugh, I don’t know.

I will share that I lost my job back in the beginning of April.  It was supposed to just be a furlough, but they decided to let me and around 100 other county employees go instead.  I can’t tell you how sad I was, I really liked my job.  Thankfully, I am being financially provided for temporarily – that was touch and go for a while though, very stressful.  And I know I’m not alone in that.

I’ve been through a wide range of emotions and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but at the end of it all, the emotion I feel the most right now is gratitude.

I may have poopie pants on my lawn, thieves breaking into my car, a dead battery, butchered shrubs, gooey liquid all over the floor, and no job, but…

Me and mine are safe and healthy, and that’s all that really matters.

 

I hope you and yours are too.

Thanks for letting me ramble today, I told you I was feeling wordy.  I sincerely appreciate you all.

 

Flower for your thoughts…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

 

Spirals

In the garden of my mind

many thoughts intertwine

 

and in my heart emotions swirl

joys and sorrows all unfurl

 

The journey of change as life unfolds

leads me back to Source where peace flows

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2019

 

Just creating spirals with flowers in my garden while I work some things out…

Spending time in nature and being creative is always good for working things out, don’t you agree?!

 

Wishing you joy and beauty today!

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Thoughts on a Thursday with Rumi

“What is the Heart? 

A flower opening” 

 

Rumi

 

 

Do you think the flower was afraid, to open?  I mean, sure, there’s the warm, radiant sunlight to bask in, the lovely breeze to caress its petals, but there’s also rain, hail, and even snow that can hurt, destroy and devastate – and we all know that you can’t trust the weather…

To open your heart is to be vulnerable, and who can we trust?  Who will nourish it and cherish it, who will appreciate and celebrate its deep mysteries and beauty?

I don’t know and I feel afraid.  But like the flower, it is in my nature to open…

 

 

 

May the warm sunlight and a lovely breeze find you wherever you are today…

 

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Silent Sunday

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Thoughts on a Monday

 

Don’t let your dreams

get crowded out by weeds

Clear away the debris 

and set them free

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2018

 

I know my little rhyme is a bit on the cheesy side, but it’s what sprang to mind when I noticed my blue rock with the word Dream carved on it getting crowded by weeds in my garden…

I like to keep a more natural look to my garden, and actually allow some of what are considered to be ‘weeds’ grow in my garden.  But I have a few weeds crowding out my dreams in the garden of my life right now and I’m feeling like it might be time to do some weeding there.

Now, to figure out how to go about doing that…

Any ideas?  How do you ‘clear away the debris’?

 

Just some thoughts for you on a Monday…

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Mosaics

 

“We are mosaics-

pieces of light, love, history, stars-

glued together

with magic and music and words.”

~ Anita Krizzan

 

I came across the above quote the other day while out shopping with my daughter and granddaughter and it brought tears to my eyes.  I don’t know why, but it just really struck a chord.

I’ve been running a bit on empty these days, working at two different jobs and only having one day off per week.  But I have found a few moments here and there along the way to fill my tank.  Coming across this quote was one of them, it stopped me right in my tracks  – I don’t ever want to get so busy that I lose sight of what a miraculous gift life truly is…  Every. Single. Breath…

Wishing you moments of beauty, awareness and discovery as you go through this day…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1

Brain Surgery

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately as to what career path I should take, and last night I had a dream that I was performing brain surgery.  Apparently, I had become a neurosurgeon?   But I had no clue what I was doing and faked my way through the whole thing.  It felt so wrong.  I was so happy and relieved afterward that the guy was okay that I held his face in my hands and cried.  Even though it all turned out okay, I think it’s safe to say that there’s no future for me in neurosurgery.

Other things happened in the dream too that give me cause to ponder and reflect on, but what I come away with in the end, is that I should do something that feels authentic to me.  Something that I am equipped for and gifted at – unlike brain surgery.  There’s a no-brainer.   😉

Ever since my divorce back in 2011, I’ve been wondering what I should do with my life.  Thankfully, I’ve had an income from my divorce settlement, so I’ve been able to take the time to try and figure that out.  But the interesting thing is…  that while I’ve been wondering what I should do with my life, I’ve realized that I’ve already been doing it all along.  Living each day, being open, listening.  And I’m so grateful for all of the experiences that I’ve had over these past 6 years – even the sad ones, because I’ve grown so much through it all.  But the time is nearing that my settlement will go down to an amount that is no longer sufficient to support me financially, so I will need to find a job.  It’s exciting and daunting at the same time, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do.  What to do, what to do?  I might need brain surgery after thinking so hard trying to figure it out.

A few of you know, but I haven’t shared here publicly yet about the total knee replacement surgery I underwent this past September.  The recovery has been really slow, gosh what an ordeal it’s been for me, like seriously, wow, but the surgery went very smoothly and I haven’t had any complications, so for that I am truly grateful.  I’m scheduled to have my second knee replaced at the end of February, and my hope is that once I’ve recovered, I will have more job opportunities available to me with two fully functioning knees.  The sky is the limit really, and I’m completely open.

Well, open unless it includes performing brain surgery.  😉

But hey, maybe the meaning of my dream was more about how I can do anything – even brain surgery.

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Peace and Love 1