✿~Peace & Love~✿
“I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
~ Anne Frank
It is NOT barefoot weather here in Minnesota on this 1st day of spring, but sometimes your bare feet just really neeeeed to touch the earth… Well, mine do anyway, and I couldn’t relate more to Anne Frank’s sentiments above.
Wherever you are in the world today, I hope you can find a moment to connect with nature.
And remember to breathe deeply.
Wishing you solace. And sending out so much Love to all of you. Stay well my friends.
✿~Peace & Love~✿
Tagged Anne Frank, Minnesota, Nature, Photography, Quotes, Spring
✿~Peace & Love~✿
Posted in Nature, Photography, Winter
Tagged Frost, Minnesota, Nature, Photography, weather, winter
Icy crystals
dazzling with delicate beauty
glow
in dawn’s warm rays
© Julie Rehnelt 2020
{Brrrrr} it’s cold here in Minnesota this morning! ❄ Currently, it’s -11 with a -28 windchill! Makes me grateful for a furnace, among other things…
Hope you have lots to feel grateful for today. Wishing you beauty and joy. And warmth!
✿~Peace & Love~✿
✿~Peace & Love~✿
Whew what a week it’s been! I can’t think of a more perfect time to reflect on all the things I’m thankful for…
Feeling grateful for these two beautiful people – my sister and brother-in-law…
for taking me to experience this beautiful place…
I’m still feeling all the aaahhh remembering.
I’m grateful for the random patron at the library who brought in tulips for all of the staff…
There’s nothing like fresh flowers in the midst of winter to remind you that spring will indeed come again. 🌷
I’m beyond grateful for this lovely – my daughter, who turned 28 this past Tuesday…
and grateful I was able to celebrate the day with her. It may have been her birthday, but she’s the gift – to me, to her children, and to everyone who crosses her path. Such a beautiful person, inside and out! 💕
I’m also grateful that I’ve kept various journals all these years, so that I can look back on gems like this from my daughter’s infancy…
Eeek! Hahaha!
And now for the reason for the “whew” I mentioned at the top of this post…
I’m grateful for my quick spring to action when our basement flooded the other day, and for the ability to channel my inner MacGyver, so I could rescue all of our family heirlooms from water damage. You cannot imagine the horror and panic I felt when I stepped down into that ankle-deep water. I was down there for hours trying to get things under control, it was a nightmare. You’re probably not really going to be able to tell what is going on in this photo, but basically, I (with the help of my sister’s gigantic brain) rigged something up in the aftermath to direct the remaining water that was leaking from a cracked nut on the spigot on the main water pipe coming into the house to go directly into the floor drain. The whole basement flooding thing is a long, long, long story, which will only exhaust you and make me have to relive it all, so let me just say… A funnel, a hose, a half-full can of paint and two lasagna pans walked into a bar…
with a measuring cup and some tape. 🙃
And I’m so grateful for this shiny new pipe the city came and installed…
For FREE! On account that it was one of their employees who cracked that nut when he came several months ago to install a new water meter. They couldn’t fit a new nut, so they ended up replacing the entire pipe (which I’m pretty sure ordinarily would not be free). This one has a handy lever instead of a twist knob too. Hopefully I’ll never have a reason to need to shut off the main water to the house again, but if I do, that lever will make it much easier.
I’m also grateful for creativity, and for the fun I had making beeswax candles with my family…
Not to mention the warmth, the light and the sweet scent I get to enjoy.
Lastly, I’m grateful for the moon, who follows me around everywhere and reminds me of the vastness of the universe…
and that I’m connected to it all…
I’m also grateful for all of you! May you have lots to be thankful for today too! Many blessing, my friends…
✿~Peace & Love~✿
Posted in Random Thoughts & Contemplations
Tagged Creativity, Family, flowers, Gratitude, Home improvement, Moon, Nature, Photography, Thoughts, winter
The spiral of life
ever turning
spinning
twisting
Curves ever winding
inner to outer
and back to center again
A journey of beauty
wonder
mystery
the spiral of life
© Julie Rehnelt 2020
~
This past week the spiral of my life brought me to Miami Florida! I’ve never been to Florida before, so it was a fun, new adventure for me!
My sister and her husband flew me there to spend a few days with them while they are on vacation down there. How nice of them was that?! I’m so grateful!
But do you know what guys? The winter loves me so much that it followed me all the way from Minnesota and made iguanas fall from the skies! Yep. They had a windchill advisory and everything. One local told us it was the coldest temps they’ve had in 5 years. I blamed myself and promptly apologized. 😉
But being a cold-hearty Minnesotan, I found it amusing that they issued a windchill advisory for 35 degree weather, and my sister and I giggled to see many of the locals all bundled up in winter clothes. You guys think this is cold? Bah, you haven’t seen nothing! Incidentally, I hadn’t packed any of my own warm clothes, thinking it was gonna be 80 degrees. I didn’t even wear a coat to the airport, knowing I wouldn’t need it. But I was wrong, it was indeed quite nippy on Tuesday evening. But that didn’t stop us from going out to the hot tub that night. The only other people we met out there with us were from Canada. Maybe they’re the ones to blame for bringing the winter weather! Hahaha!
When I got back home, I heard that the National Weather Service had also issued a warning about “Falling Iguanas” on their Twitter page and that really took the cake! But in actuality, that’s not funny. Poor things! And they weren’t really falling from the skies obviously, they were falling from the trees.
I didn’t see any fallen iguanas while I was there, but I did see one, and thankfully, it was alive and well. It was really cool to see. I snapped a picture of it, but didn’t get a good quality shot…
You can’t tell from the photo, but it was HUGE! I wish I could have gotten closer, but it ran away as I approached. I was lucky to even get this shot.
I feel lucky to have even seen it at all! And lucky to have seen all of the other wonderful and beautiful things I saw while I was in Florida too! I have 300+ other photos that I snapped during the few short days I was there. Excessive much? 😉 But I won’t make you scroll endlessly to look at them all, I’ll try and share them little by little in future posts.
But I will share this one before I go…
My big seester and I at the lighthouse on beautiful Key Biscayne ❤
May your day be with love! And may the spiral of life bring you to beautiful places, people and things today…
✿~Peace & Love~✿
