Little Free Libraries

So I found the most incredible thing the other day.  I read an article (the source I don't remember, might have been 9news.com) about these little libraries that are all over the country, including right here in my own neighborhood.

The idea is that people buy or make these little mini-houses, British phone booths, cat shaped structures, and those structure house books.

Furthermore, you take a book and you give a book.  As a reader, any book, especially one that is free is just about the best thing ever.
I shared the link with my friends.  One of my girlfriends found one in her neigborhood and sent me a picture.  I was so happy.

First the structures themselves are so darn cute, not to mention that they are filled with books.  How can this be wrong I ask you?!

So for those of you who read this I wanted to share with you too. 

I hope you check it out, find a Little Free Library in your neck of the woods, borrow a book, and return a book.

Happy reading and discovery my friends.

http://littlefreelibrary.org/

To find one in you area visit the link below.

http://littlefreelibrary.org/ourmap/

The "B" List

Most of us have one....that list, of all the things we want to do, big and small in life.  "The Bucket List".  We create them to inspire ourselves to do more, be more, find things that make us happy.  These list push us to experience things that maybe we wouldn't.

So I've been working on mine.  It's clique I know, but I'm at a place in life in which I'm not sure what makes me happy anymore, which doing what makes us happy is really the meaning of life, which ultimately is the question that plaques my mind, everyday.

Originally I started it for things to do the rest of the year.  Planning on keeping it around 10 items...it's now grown to over 50. 

Do you have a bucket list?  What's on it.  Please share...if you wish.  I'd love to hear what is on it.

Thanks for reading.
Lydia

She Said Yes

Gosh....last night was a great night.  After 3 1/2 years the love of my life asked me to marry him (kind of lol).  A ring was found in my seat.  Good enough for me since I'm not all about that big deals.  As many of you know Glenn and I have had our fair share of hard times.  We've gone through a few vacations from each other.  Yours truly tried other things while on those vacations (big mistake), and have come back together, better and stronger than before.

A Little History....
Glenn and I met....of all places on Plenty of Fish.  A free dating website.  Yep that's right.  The first emails were exchanged on Friday, we met for coffee and by Monday of the following week we had both deleted our profiles on Plenty of Fish.  We both just knew.  I'll never forget that first day we met, for coffee, at a Starbucks.  I'd given him the location of the wrong one and we laugh about it now.  Nevertheless, he eventually arrived, in uniform, and I was done for.  Man did he look good.  We ended up closing the Starbucks because we sat there so long, talking.

Along The Way.....
We had our good times and bad.  We've had our rough patches.  We've gone through a few vacations as we now affectionaletly call them.  During that time I found a distraction, which was just that.  A distraction from what I was feeling, the loss I felt of feeling things might not working out with the person I felt so comfortable with, but not once did it ever feel right with that distraction, and I always knew it came back to my Lobster.  Plus he wouldn't go away.  :)  No one could compare or compete with the guy who knew me better than anyone, who had helped me through more panic attacks than I could count, and who ultimately had my heart, who ultimately felt like home.  He always did.  Even if I didn't want to admit it at the time.

Looking Toward The Future.....
So after a few vacations, we came back together, stronger than ever. I feel like each of us is committed more than ever before to this relationship, and to giving it our all.  I know now that I can't ever love another as I love the Lobster, and he is just that, my Lobster, my Penguin, and I place a stone before his feet.  Last night he placed a ring in my seat (maybe this was the stone), bless his amazing heart, he just couldn't wait, and I said yes. When or where it will happen, I don't know, and to be honest, for me it doesn't matter.  I know I love this man, and ring or no ring, wedding or no wedding, I will spend my life loving him and only him.

Here is to happy ever after. . . .

Somethings and Nothings

Why is it so hard to let things go sometimes?  Even more so, why is it we perpetually turn something that was nothing into something.  We glorify it, make it seem like it was so much better than it was.  It's frustrating when you're in the middle of it.  You think about the something, know that it was something, but can't remember what the things were that made it nothing and the things that were missing that made it nothing.  Furthermore, I look back on things and think "Really Lydia, what were you thinking?!"  Don't get me wrong there is nothing in my life thus far that I regret because I truly believe that everything comes into our lives and happens for a reason, but sometimes my logic escapes me.  One particular instance stands out in my mind as of late in which I am experiencing all these feelings.  I knew it was wrong, that it wasn't a good choice, that it didn't fit me, who I was, or what I wanted, or my needs but I went there anyway.  And then when it was part of my past I thought "That wasn't so bad, it was really great actually", when in fact it really wasn't.  It was actually really bad, on so many levels and ways I can't even express.  There is a line from a song that stands out for me.

"I can't think of what I learned right now, but I'll be thanking you some day"

I'm not sure what this was suppose to teach me, what I was suppose to learn but well I'm sure someday I'll know and it will all be clear....until then I'll have to live with the somethings and the nothings knowing that I'm better off and will be a better person once I understand the some of those somethings and all of the nothings.

Thanks for reading...
Lydia

More music.................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP79jDNAAK0..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCkfTCjF8SM&ob=av2e
I've always liked Mat Kearney but this song is wonderful...................

We're just fumbling through the grey
Trying find a heart that's not walking away" ~ Mat Kearney Ships In The Night

Motivation...where for art thou!?

Okay seriously...I'm getting concerned.  I have no motivation....to do anything.  I used to be one of those people who could get a lot done in a short amount of time.  Now I'm that person that can barely get anything done in a lot of time!  I'm having a hard time.  I don't know if is all that has gone on in my life within the last six months, the environment I'm in, or if I'm just becoming that lazy person I feared I could be.  I know we all have our days when we don't want to do anything, but I've now strung days into weeks and weeks into months.  I read Facebook posts of friends who are doing, getting things done and I'm envious....but then I sit and don't do anything.  I don't want to do homework, or laundry, or workout, or do crafts.  I mostly want to sit and watch TV...well TV shows on DVD.

I'm not really sure where the girl who was always so busy is but I wish she would return.  And what reallly scares me is not that she left but that I don't know HOW to get her back.  Why am I so unmotivated to do the things that once brought me pleasure.  Now the only pleasure I get is rotting out my brain.

My brother just gave me a sheet of really great quotes, how fitting since I'm writint this.  A couple that really struck me where.

"You are what you repeatedly doo.  Excellence is not an event - it is a habit"  ~ Aristotle

I repeatedly do nothing but watch TV, so how do I get back my habits I once had, so that I can be excellent once again?  Maybe I don't need to get back the old ones but find new ones.  I just wish I knew how.  I look at my to do list every day and feel daunted by it.  Perhaps it's time to return to meditation....prayer.  Maybe I need to hand this over to someone else and be guided that way.  Maybe I need to read "Seven Habits again. 

"Obstacles don't have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work arount it" ~ Michael Jackson

Music

I'm always amazed at how music can resonate a time in our lives, an event, a person.  Sometimes it's just the sound that mirrors what we feel or sometimes it's the lyrics that mean everything.  I've always loved music and how it can do this.  It can even change our mood.  It's powerful.  There are also times that we just love a song.  I just got the Florence + the Machine Lungs album and I LOVE it.  Love the singers voice, the sounds of the music, and the lyrics are exquisite.  I've never been good at expressing my feelings in a conversation with someone as Glenn can attest to but songs can say everything that you feel in the best possible way.  A couple songs that I am also loving right now for many reasons is Gotye: Somebody That I Used to Know, Florence + the Machine: No Light, No Light, and Imagine Dragons: It's Time (this one I love not so much for the lyrics, but the sound.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGH-4jQZRcc&ob=av2e


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sENM2wA_FTg&ob=av2e


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWOyfLBYtuU


I love when I find new music.  It can be like finding treasure.  One other wonderful thing about music, is it can bring people together.  Right now my son is at that age were he wants nothing to do with me and thinks that I'm about the most un-cool person on the planet....until we listen to music.  I love when he gets in the car and tells me he wants me to hear a song, plays it for me, and then anxiously awaits for me to say I like it.  Music is an avenue that we can still connect on.

"All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it. "

Jean Cocteau