Playing Tourist (or Finding Happiness, Day 3)

We got to play tourist today in and around Fort Pulaski and in Savannah. It was an all around happy day! The weather was gorgeous - cool and sunny - and we enjoyed every minute!

Here a few of my favorite moments:

I'm sure there will be more photos tomorrow as we continue to explore Savannah! Stay tuned...

I hope you had a wonderful day yourself!!

❧ Silke

Finding Happiness, Day 2

Today was a Busy day - yes, busy with a capital b! We are expecting a house guest this weekend and are in fact leaving for the airport in a little while to pick him up. We can't wait to be tourists together all weekend long in beautiful Savannah!

So today was filled with cooking, baking, and some last minute cleaning and errand running. Where did I find my happiness? In my to-do list, as I was checking things off.

And when I had a few minutes here and there, I did a little knitting with this gorgeous silk ribbon yarn from Mango Moon. Aren't those colors amazing?! Another little piece of happiness...

Wishing you all a terrific Thursday and 

your own little slice of happy!!

❧ Silke

Finding Happiness, Day 1

Dear friends, my days have been quite full of good things. You know how sometimes you are in a waiting period and then suddenly everything pops at the same time? That's what's happening here. Lots of stuff is going on and it's all good.

For a little while I thought about suspending my blog until the new year, but I think I would really miss it. However, with all that I have going on in terms of creative projects and upcoming travel, it has felt a little overwhelming to think about blogging at the same time.

So, I thought about something I do every day that is inspiring to me and might be to you. Every day I seek to find something that makes me happy, and I try to find it in every situation. I've been doing that for many years and I will continue to do so forever more. It's important to me that I stick with the positive life brings me.

And I want to share that with you on a (pretty much) daily basis. Sometimes it will only be a photo, but I hope often it will be more. Maybe a story connected to the photo. Who knows? We'll all be surprised...

For today, it's this monarch butterfly that keeps eating from our milkweed plant that Daniel planted specifically for the monarchs. Both the butterfly and their caterpillars love this plant! And this year there are many that found it.

I'm linking this to I Heart Macro on the beautiful Laura's blog!

May you find many things that make you happy today!!

❧ Silke

Flowers within Flowers

Dear friends, my week just zoomed by. It was filled with really nice business. Some chores, some creative projects, a little shopping and a lot of being out and about. This next week will be much of the same.

The temperatures have dropped a bit and that causes me to get busy! I finally come back to life after the humidity leaves and feel like doing everything at once!

Still I am taking time to look at things closely and take some pictures for you.  You already know that I love zinnias, and I'm especially smitten with how they look when they are fully in bloom. Tiny flowers within flowers...

So of course I snapped quite a few photos. Enjoy!!

I am linking this to I Heart Macro on Laura's beautiful blog. Head on over for inspiration, breathtaking photography and heart-stirring poetry!

I'm thinking of you all and hope you had a lovely weekend!!

❧ Silke

Hidden Critters

We are having a rainy morning, friends, but just a few days ago, when it was sunny and warm, I was watering in the garden or cutting some of the zinnias to bring inside, when two little critters caught my attention.

Both of them are excellently camouflaged and oh, so small! One baby lizard and one small frog! Can you see them?

I hope your day is sunnier than ours!!

I'm linking this to Camera Critters, a fun blog meme for animal photographs. Once I started looking at one meme, I was led to more and more. It's amazing all the fun things you can participate in...

❧ Silke

Something New

One of my go-to blogs for inspiration and comfort is Laura's blog Shine the Divine: Creativity is a Spiritual Practice.

It is filled with wisdom, humor, humanity, poetry and gorgeous photos. Laura has a meme called "I Heart Macro" and I decided to take part in it on a regular basis.

It makes you look at things up close - really look at them. We have this beautiful staghorn fern that Daniel mounted on a piece of driftwood he found by the river. It is right next to our back door and whenever I go outside, I am stopped for a few seconds by the amazing patterns on this plant.

Different patterns on the leaves and on those mysterious disks it grows. Aren't they beautiful?

I'm linking this to I Heart Macro on Laura's blog. Head on over for some wonderful inspiration on this Sunday morning!

❧ Silke

Preparing for Winter

When I walked outside the other day, all I saw was this incredible mess the squirrels are making as they prepare for the imaginary winter here.

I say imaginary because we don't have a real winter in the south. It does get cold and sometimes below freezing at night, but it always warms up during the day and there's food to be had for the squirrels all the time. Yet it is in their DNA I believe and as the days get shorter, they start eating and eating and eating. And making a big mess!

And when they are done with a pine cone, the simply let it fall, making it quite dangerous to sit outside these days...

After I surveyed the mess from afar, I zoomed in and discovered the gorgeous pattern on this pine cone they had discarded. Isn't it beautiful? And it smelled so good! Thank you, squirrels, for that moment!

Wishing you a less messy day, but equally filled with little surprises!

I'm off to the art supply and knitting stores, two of my favorite places to visit...

❧ Silke

On this foggy morning...

... I am at my favorite cafe in beautiful downtown Savannah with an excellent coffee and my knitting!

Wishing you an equally perfect morning!!

❧ Silke

This morning...

... to start out my day, I watched this short excerpt of a dialogue between quantum scientists and the Dalai Lama earlier this year.

His thoughts on the illusion of our perception of separateness will definitely keep my mind and heart occupied for a while.

For those of you not interested in either the Dalai Lama or quantum physics, here are a few photos I took yesterday.

You know, sometimes I think that if I gazed into one of these beautiful flowers long enough, I would find the entire universe reflected there. Such perfection!

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

~ Albert Einstein

❧ Silke

Cleaning out...

I've been cleaning house - both "for real" and metaphorically. Clearing out clutter, organizing what is left, letting go of what's no longer needed and making way for whatever is coming up.

And while I am getting rid of much stuff that has accumulated, I am finding some real treasures. Like this picture of young me in a tree. I was such a tomboy, climbing trees, digging in the dirt and collecting bugs of all kind.

I had such a spirit of wonder and adventure. The older I get, the more cautiously I approach life. The more stuff I have, the less I want to let go and explore new things.

It's only natural, but still I want to recapture some of that energy I had when I was young (so much energy in fact, that I hardly needed any sleep to the great exhaustion of my poor parents...).

Every day was so full of fun things to be discovered, new games to play, new stories to imagine, new friends to be made, and new trees to climb.

I have decided that today I am going look at my world with those young and eager eyes again and try to find the magic that is surely there...

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

❧ Silke

Amsterdam & Thoughts (continued)

Thank you all for your comments on my post yesterday. I just reread them - so much wonderful food for thought. And of course I've been mulling this over and while I tell you a little more, I will show you the rest of the photos from Amsterdam! If you ever get a chance to visit this great city, you must go!!

In one of the comments, Brenda talked about two things I could relate to you a lot - first being very shy as a child and then living in a culture other than the one you were brought up in.  

Both of that is true for me. I used to be very shy and I am still introverted rather than gregarious. And when you are shy, there is one thing you will try to avoid at any cost: standing out. And when you allow your individuality to show, you stand out by nature.

In me that was always a push and pull - I admired those who became themselves fully and embraced their greatness or their genius. There were moments when I could feel that same greatness in me. At the same time I needed to not let my light shine too brightly or I could no longer disappear in the crowd.

With becoming an artist and blogging about that, I have forced myself to come out of hiding. There are days I enjoy that fully and other days when I'd rather go hide again. But the greater part of me knows that it's time for me to fully unfold.

The other part is that I was raised in a society that valued and encouraged conformity. I'm not saying it's bad, but that for an "obedient" girl like me, it had a more profound effect than it would on someone who will do "their own thing" anyway.

Now I live in the US and find this to be a place where I can truly become who I am meant to be. It's still not easy for me to show my unique talents and personality, but here people reinvent themselves all the time and it's ok.

It's normal, in fact. I was just talking with a friend of mine who met a woman who recently retired and now wants to start over. She's moving to Savannah and wants to become an artist working with wood, something totally unrelated to her previous career. I love that!

Part of me envies people who have it all figured out. They know their vocation, their career, who they are, how they want to live their lives. There is such peace in that. Or boredom depending on how much you like what you chose to do.  

The bigger part of me, though, is thrilled at my evolving life. It is telling me that it's never too late to become who we came here to be. That it's always a good time for change. That it only matters what I think of my life and that the opinion of others is none of my concern.

That being creative and sharing that is important to the world. That living one's truth and sharing that is more important still.

That all of life is change and it's an illusion for us to think that things stay the same for anyone. That we are all evolving beings trying to find our happy place.

That to love and live with passion is of utmost importance. That outward security is an illusion. The the only true security is to know oneself.

That life is different for each of us and that THAT is of tremendous value. That it is important to support each other in the search for our own self.

That to uplift one is to uplift all! That my life is unfolding perfectly. That happiness is mine NOW. That now is all there is...

And in the spirit of this perfect moment, I wish you an amazing Tuesday filled with love, joy, creativity and many happy surprises.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

~ George Eliot

❧ Silke